Commander Potter of the Starship Ascension
by C.W. Smith
Summary: The Next Great Adventure is closer then you think
1. The Next Great Adventure

Commander Potter of the Starship Ascension

A Harry Potter / ? Crossover

Chapter 1: The Next Great Adventure

By Legato Deathscythe

Disclaimer: Don't own shit. Got the idea for a few crossovers but I can't decide where to go. Fortunately I can start them off all the same with this chapter. The question becomes what I should cross it over with. I'll ask after this chapter is posted and give up a poll with the options.

Seven years, had it only been seven years since he had finished off that snake faced bastard? It had been one hardship after another hoisted onto the young mans shoulders. So many lost to the war, then the second guessing, the cries for lost family and friends, the condemnations for not finishing the war fast enough. As if he should have been held responsible at the young age of seventeen for a war effort. Percy Weasley had shown his true colors not during the battle but after. Harry always felt the boy was little more then a collaborator. Not that he'd say it for Molly's sake.

Andromeda hadn't lasted long after the war, so Harry had taken in his godson no questions asked. But as he looked at the world around him, Harry Potter had to ask himself if this was the world he wanted to live in. Barely anything changed after the war. Granted, Hermione had managed to succeed in her quest for equal rights for any sentient not a pure-blooded human male. But aside from that the real problems still remained. If anything it had gotten worse. And the muggle world wasn't much better. The terrorist attack in New York back in 2001 had just shown Harry that he wouldn't have much better luck out in that world. Things were getting worse every day it seemed. The only real peace was with family and friends. Not that he had many he could trust, fewer then he wanted.

So he had been working on what most would call a pipe dream at best for the last few years. Harry had gained masteries in many fields of magic, and had also studied many other disciplines. Astrophysics and Quantum Mechanics were his current interests as he paid the goblins for certain materials and services. The hangar/construction bay he had contracted the goblins to build under Potter Manor stored most everything he had built and designed since he was twelve. He had trusted the goblins to get what he needed for years. Ever since he first stepped into Gringott's for the first time.

–

_July 31, 1991 – Gringott's Bank, Diagon Alley, London_

Harry had barely gotten over his shock of seeing piles and piles of gold in a vault with his name on it as Hagrid filled a bag with just enough for Harry for the year when he caught sight of something. Harry stepped into the vault and stepped closer. What he saw was a book, an old copy of _"From the Earth to the Moon"_ by Jules Verne. When he opened it he saw a note in the book.

_Harry -_

_Never stop dreaming of the impossible._

_Mum_

Harry ran his hand over the old book and smiled. It was something of his mother's. A connection to his family. He looked at the goblin, Griphook, and asked, "Where would I go to find out if there was something like a house or something still in their name?"

The goblin simply looked at him and said, "You would need to speak with the account manager for the account. I can arrange a meeting with him prior to your departure from the back today if you wish."

Harry nodded, he was so eager to see if there was anything else left from his parents, his family. Hagrid didn't have much problem with that, after all, Dumbledore had simply said to get Harry what he needed for school and to watch over him in the Alley. He didn't see any problems with Harry talking with someone here about his families holdings. Sides, by the time he got to the surface the poor man knew he would need a little something to get him over the cart ride.

Harry spent about an hour with the account manager, Ripclaw, who gave him a full accounting of the Potter holdings, the true value of the family to include a high security vault with more gold and a lot of heirlooms. The goblin had one more thing to give Harry.

"Usually we'd wait until you reached the age of majority to give this to you. However as you are the only member of the family remaining it invokes the end of line clause. This will allow us to process any orders on the account. The last order your father gave us was to earn as much as we could for the family and rebuild the family manor in Wales. It's on the edge of a cliff facing the Irish Sea I believe. You have maybe five hundred meters between the manor and the cliff, but safety charms would stop anyone from falling off and getting injured," Ripclaw informed him.

Harry nodded and placed the Head of House ring for the House of Potter on his finger as Ripclaw instructed. He looked at it and smiled, feeling just a bit closer to the family he had never gotten to know. He didn't, couldn't know that his taking that ring would cause all sort of headaches for anyone else. At that point, he was just trying to get closer to the long dead.

Albus Dumbledore would have a bit of a headache for the next month due to the Blood Wards failing. He would find out later why, and frankly couldn't hold it against the child. Anyone in his position would have done the same thing in Albus reckoning.

The rest of the day had been spent collecting the needed supplies from the rest of the Alley. Due to how long it took him to finish up at the bank, Harry never met Draco Malfoy at Madam Malkin's. It didn't make much difference in the long haul. The best part for the day however had been getting his wand, and Hagrid giving him his first present in a beautiful snowy owl that harry would eventually name Hedwig.

Harry would spend the next month going over every book he had picked up, to include the book from his vault. It was a prized possession simply for the note inside the cover. He had even went to Potter Manor using a portkey that Ripclaw had given him to get there. He found a large library of not just magical knowledge but a a rather large collection of fiction or all types. Harry read as much as he could.

–

_September 1, 1991 – Hogwarts Express 8 hours out from Hogsmead Station_

Harry just smiled as he watched the terrain passed by. They had just left the station, all the happy families seeing their children off. Harry was envious of the others with happy families to write home to. The red haired brother's, the Weasley's, had stopped by and introduced their younger brother Ron to him. Harry just smiled as he spoke with Ron about the world he was entering. Eventually they were joined by someone who could at that point could become either friend or foe.

"They say Harry Potter is in this compartment," the blond boy.

Harry had been trying to explain the concept of Science Fiction to Ron when they had been interrupted, the copy of _"From the Earth to the Moon"_ in his hand. He looked up at the blond boy and said, "The would be me."

"I'm Malfoy, Draco Malfoy," the blond introduced himself. In another world, another universe the conversation would take a bad turn due to Ron simply chuckling at the way the boy introduced himself.

Before that could happen however Harry asked, "What do you know about non-magical literature and other entertainment?"

"Nothing, why would I?"

"I was wondering. The way you introduced yourself is the same as a rather popular non-magical character named James Bond," Harry explained.

Draco threw up just a little in his mouth at that. "Really."

"Yes, not that he isn't a character to live up to. He's sort of one of those beloved hero's that gets by with his training, his wits, and always gets the girl in the end. There's a lot of characters like that, the classic hero role."

Draco felt a little lost for a moment, something he shared in common with his bodyguards and Ron Weasley. Harry turned to them and asked, "Does wizarding literature have the same sort of thing?"

Before either could answer a girl with bushy brown hair and a slight overbite looked in, "Have any of you seen a toad? A boy lost his."

Harry answered politely, "Nope, no toad here. Just talking about the differences in Magical and Non-Magical literature."

The girl looked like she wanted to join their discussion, but had promised to help find said toad. Harry made a mental note of it and would later learn her name, Hermione Granger. It would lead to a friendship crossing house lines that quiet frankly would have several rocky periods over the years. The hardships shared and faced would strengthen the bonds between Harry and his group over time.

_July 31, 2004 – Potter Manor, Hangar Bay_

It was sleek, with black metal polished to a high gloss all over the hull. The wings were swept back much like a fighter jet, and the engines in the back were long rectangular slits along the back and the wings. Within the construct Harry had made liberal use of expansion charms, transfigured materials, and even gone as far as attempted to recreate the masterpiece of magic that was the sorting hat of Hogwarts. He had given his craft a personality that he had based on what he felt was a motherly persona. The voice was much like that of Professor McGonagal, and just as scholarly. He affectionately called his want to be spaceship _Ascension_, in hopes that what he learned from her could elevate the whole world beyond the conflicts that seemed to pop up almost daily. The central consciousness of the ship he had named Lily.

There were many systems that he had built in to his ship. He had taught Teddy everything he could as he went about construction, hoping that the young boy would be as excited as he was. The only real problem Harry saw was that _Ascension_ couldn't go faster than light, or FTL as he would say. This was not a limitation of her building, but the simple fact that humanity had yet to figure out that particular issue. Fortunately he felt that if he found out one day he could upgrade her engines. He did have an experimental concept constructed into the ship. He figured that apparition was the key and spent time tearing through the arithmetical calculations of the process. He felt that his ship SHOULD be able to jump over relatively short distances through space if he had gotten it right. He also had built up a potential navigation system, but using Galactic center as point zero.

One would wonder how Harry planned on powering his ship. They would find it filled with crystal like capacitors in the engine room all charged through runic clusters that would pull in energy from the fabric of space itself. Harry had come to the conclusion that magic was very usable in such a way. One day the rest of the world might actually try to figure out how to use this energy for their own purposes. It never depleted, never polluted, and most of all never ever needed to be fought over. So long as the universe existed so would magic. Muggles had started theorizing along similar lines, calling the energy zero-point energy. Harry hoped that it lead to a more enlightened world one of these days.

This didn't mean that he had not foreseen possible problems. He had designed in several weapon systems and a way to control them all from the bridge. Point defense weapons existed along the hull that had been hidden behind concealing doors. The doors would retract and give the powerful rail-guns a chance to fire at any danger. The main guns facing forward would be capable of firing a concentrated beam of energy form the ship in several different ways, from a massive beam of energy, to a rapid volley of energy bursts. He didn't know if he would ever need it, but he was a student of Alistor "Mad-Eye" Moody so planned for the worst.

Many of his friends from the war had moved on with their lives. He never had figured out what to do and had shared much of his work with the Department of Mysteries. He didn't know if they cared, or if they would ever use what he gave them, but he felt it important that if he left and never came back that some of his work on _Ascension_ should survive him. He had also published many of his "theories" in muggle science journals. Most of it were his thoughts on how energy could be utilized in both defensive, offensive, and peaceful ways. This include the complex formula he had developed.

Hermione and Ron both felt he was a bit unhinged after the war. Taking a killing curse to the chest hadn't helped his mental state, but the time he had spent with Albus at the crossroads of life and death had brought him a certain peace. Much of Tom Riddle's, he refused to use his anagrammed name, knowledge had transferred to him. Harry wasn't too upset still being a parselmouth, it merely allowed him to speak to more beings, and ask them to watch his property for any dangers. His friends had gotten married, and had two children. Rose and Hugo considered Harry the cool crazy uncle that everyone wanted to settle down.

Harry had even gone as far as to have his entire fortune converted from coins into one ounce rectangular strips of gold, silver, and even some platinum. He left the knuts behind which still numbered in the millions to be divided between his friends should he leave. The entire combined library of the Potter's and the Black's had been loaded on-board, he didn't want that knowledge to be lost to him should he leave. Magic helped out a lot when it came to space within his ship. The crew quarters were spacious and each bed had been outfitted with stasis charms so that he and anyone that joined him as his crew could spend decades in sleep while _Ascension_ flew through space. He only needed himself and Teddy, but could take maybe twenty more total as he had ten rooms in addition to his own. Teddy had already decorated his room, as had Harry.

Today would be the first test flight of the _Ascension_. Harry had invited everyone he knew to witness this momentous occasion, including Luna and her father Xeno to record the event for _The Quibbler_ as well as a reporter from the _Daily Prophet. _Also attending were Kingsley Shackelbolt, the Minister of Magic, and Croaker, the head of the Department of Mysteries with one of his assistants. They had brought along with them members of the Non-Magical government, to include the Prime Minister. The Weasley's had shown up as well, with all the children joining them. Draco Malfoy, his wife Pansy and their son Scorpius were there as well as Narcissa Malfoy. Harry just smiled as he watched the gathered enjoy the day, talking and playing together. Teddy was taking care of the younger guests, showing them around the less sensitive parts of the ship and telling them all about it. Harry smiled as his group gathered in the Docking bay and made sure everything was ready.

Hermione and Ron walked up behind him and both smiled at their friend. Harry was engulfed in a massive hug from the woman he considered his sister, then shook the hand of the man he considered a true brother. "Well guys, what do you think so far?"

Hermione just shook her head in amused exasperation, "Well, I'm eager to see if it will work as you expect it."

"Yea mate, knowing you this thing will fly, but all the other things you want it to do? I just can't imagine it," Ron said.

Harry just smiled, "Don't worry you two. I've taken every precaution, tested and retested every system. _Ascension _will fly, and she'll be able to cut through space with out a problem. The only really questionable system is the Jump Drive."

Hermione chewed her lip as she asked, "I am wondering, did you have to put so many weapons on her?"

Harry just chuckled, "You never know what might happen. CONSTANT VIGALENCE!"

The three friends broke down in laughter at that. Harry slowly calmed down and looked at his friends, "You know, I've got more then enough room on board if you two want to come with me. We've got everything we could need, food, water, the combined libraries of both families. I've even got enough material to start up a colony in the hold. I've taken a lot of time to do this, and thought it through. I've even got enough genetic material both magical and mundane to repopulate a planet with every animal species we know of. I got lucky with the phoenix eggs and dragon eggs. It just wouldn't feel right without you two joining me on this next great adventure."

The pair looked at each other, a smile shared between them. Hermione spoke, "We'd love to join you Harry, it sounds like something wonderful. It's just the idea of leaving all our families behind is scary. Especially after the war."

Harry nodded, "I know, it's not exactly what one would call an easy thing."

"Fact is Harry, we're happy with where we're at. It's just not something we can see doing now. We had more then enough adventure's when we were kids," Ron said.

Harry smiled at the two, "It's alright. Sides, I'm not planning on leaving forever. I've got to take her out for a shakedown cruise first, and even then I've got a few other ideas to work on. Plus I created and put in what could be called a sub-space transceiver array on the manor grounds. So even if I'm light-years away I'm still just as easily reached."

"What ideas would those be?" Hermione asked.

Harry just shook his head, a smirk on his face, "That would be telling."

Harry got serious on them for a moment though, "Guys, I'm not taking Teddy with me on the first real test of some of the major systems. I've got an experimental concept built for an FTL drive based on apparition that should work. Operative term though is should, I'm not certain about it yet. Simulations all come back green but I won't know it's safe until the first jump. I don't want to risk Teddy getting blown up because I'm wrong."

Hermione chewed her lip in concern. Harry turned to his two best friends and asked, "I want you two to take care of him, watch over him, help him if something happens. Today's just a test flight of the sub-light systems, everyone here is going to join me on this trip. Teddy is only seven. I don't want to risk ending his life before he even gets to go to Hogwarts."

Ron firmly grabbed Harry's shoulder and looked him in the eye, "Don't worry. We'll take care of him mate."

Harry smiled, "Good. I've left the Black fortune here. My plan for it has always been for Teddy to take on the title and Head of House roll for House Black when he comes of age, so money shouldn't be a problem. Also, he has full access to the Manor and construction bay here. Everything I've written down is here and is ready for him to keep working on. _Ascension_ has both libraries entered into her database including all literature we could get our hands on from the non-magical world. If something happens to me, then it all goes to him."

Hermione looked at Harry and asked, "Are you planning on telling him?"

Harry just smiled, "He already knows. I told him I need him here monitoring the experiment from a safe location so that we could be certain the data could be looked over later by other people. I want you guys here when I do this."

A few moments later Harry had all the assembled gathered around a podium. He looked out at everyone, a smirk on his face that reminded those that knew him of Sirius Black. Harry placed his hands on the podium and spoke, "Greetings to everyone. I'm Harry Potter and I'm happy you all joined me here today for this first real flight of the _Ascension. _I'm more then happy to announce that all the advancements in both Magic and technology will be shared with the world. The technological advancements are being filtered through PBM Aerospace, CEO of which is my good friend Draco Malfoy. The magical advancements are all being distributed through Weasley Research and Weasley Industries, CEO's being Fred and George Weasley. This includes the various sized power modules that I developed for usage in both the ship and for smaller items. Considering the amount of power a large sized module is capable of producing, for now we will only offer the smaller ones for public consumption while we experiment and find the limitations and safety issues with using them for other applications.

"The theory behind the Crystalline Runic Power Batteries, or Zero-Point Modules as they are being called among our non-magical researchers, has been shared and will be shared with the scientific community of the world. Obviously we've sanitized the theory and math behind them for any and all magical references. Eventually we should be able to mass-produce them for the whole world. The possibilities and benefits of such a limitless, clean, and affordable power for the human race are obvious."

Harry continued on with his presentation, outlining his hopes and dreams for what the technomancy behind his ship would do for both magical and non-magicals separately and as a whole. He felt strongly about this, and could only hope that he was getting the idea of his dream across to the people around him. Once he finished he invited his guest to board _Ascension_ and lead them up to the dorsal observation deck.

He stood in front of them and said, "Today we are going to simply give the sub-light drives a quick run. Our destination is the Moon, our closest astronomical neighbor. During the sixties and seventies the United States sent several people to visit. It took them three days to make the trip just to get there. Our travel time will be considerably smaller. The reason for this is that the Apollo program relied on large booster rockets and timed burns, leaving the majority of the trip to the laws of momentum and gravity. _Ascension_ relies on an ion engine which will burn at a constant rate the entire trip, allowing us to get there and back in only a couple of hours."

Harry quickly sent a mental signal to Lily to launch the ship. This was one part of the ship he was keeping from everyone for now. As far as anyone was concerned there was a crew on the bridge taking care of everything. They weren't aware that Lily was actually handling everything at the moment. Harry smiled as refreshments were passed out, the world passing by them and the awe of the crowd as the _Ascension_ left Earth's atmosphere. Harry mingled with the crowd, explaining the magic and science behind everything. One scientist from Canada seemed rather put off with all the talk of magic behind everything.

"Well Dr. McCay, I understand you'd be happier if I could quantify what it is I and a small percentage of the population are doing. Problem is that we've been calling it magic and working from that mindset for over two thousand years, at minimum. Even if I could call it something else, the terminology works for what we do. Why come up with an entirely new lexicon?"

"Maybe because it's scientifically absurd. Any sufficiently advanced technological or in this case biological system takes on the appearance of magic," Dr. Rodney McCay said.

"I don't disagree with you, but until I can find a way to actually take the magic out of it it's going to be a while. The only way I'm getting around international law to get some of the theories and technologies into the mainstream is by crippling them and removing any possible magical reference. Even calling it zero-point energy is a stretch and we're doing the best we can," Harry said.

"Yes, yes, of course, the Statute of Secrecy."

"Yes, and until we can find a way to get everything together without magic being used in the creation process I can't even propose using the CRPB's for wide-spread use in the real world. The ion-drive pulling us through space right now only uses magic as it's part of the power systems. We're able to push that through PBM Aerospace with little effort, once we get a workable non-magic related power source. Until something happens though I can't even contract out with any governments for the technology. Another world shattering discovery held back from the world because of bureaucracy and fear," Harry said.

"Really, and what are the bureaucrats afraid of?"

"The world finding out that there's a part of the population that can alter reality with a little training and focus. Even if we're more socially advanced then we were back during the Witch Trials, there's still fear we'd end up burned at the stake, or experimented on," Harry shivered at the thought of being stuck in a sealed room like that.

"Anyone ever tell that that sort of thing would be considered a crime by most civilized countries?" McCay scoffed.

Harry just looked at him, "It's a little hard to make that case when it could be you under the dissection knife. Believe me, I've tried," Harry noticed that they were about to reach their destination and excused himself from the conversation and went to the front of the observation deck.

"Ladies and gentlemen, if I can have your attention. I present to you, the Moon, as close as man's come to it in the last thirty years," he said then turned to watch the view himself. It was breathtaking. Ascension flew around one side of the moon, and then came out from behind the dark side, Earth shining in the distance.

"One day, hopefully we will be able to share this with every man, woman, and child of our world. One day."

–

Harry was pretty pleased with how the day had turned out. The British and US Government representatives seemed interested in what they could get from PBM, even though they were prevented by law from getting a hold of anything that could only be classified as magical. The American's seemed really interested in the CRPB's. Unfortunately they were classified as an enchanted magical object, therefore distribution to the non-magical governments was prohibited. Harry just shook his head at the short-sightedness of a race of people that was cpable of such wonder being so close-minded.

He stood at the balcony over looking the cliff Potter Manor was built on. The massive bay doors for the construction bay just a few hundred feet below him. He leaned against the railing, watching the moon hang in the sky. He felt the approach of someone behind him, and relaxed slightly when the thin feminine arms wrapped around his waist. Harry closed his eyes and relaxed into the embrace of the nice female form behind him.

"Where's Theadore?" she asked.

"He's spending the night at Shell Cottage with all the other kids. Fluer and Bill wanted to give everyone a chance to have a night to themselves. I would have let them all use the Manor, but Fluer seems to think I need some time without children under foot."

A warm chuckle was all the answer the woman gave him.

Harry sighed and just kept looking towards the sky, "Sometimes I wonder, why I didn't just find someone to settle down with after the war. God knows I could have if I looked hard enough."

"Why did you decide not to settle down?"

"Because I couldn't find that person that wasn't drawn in by any number of meaningless reasons. My money, power, and fame would ensure I could either have my pick of any woman for a wife or sleep with as many as I desired. But I just can't do that. The girls I'd concider trying anything with are already involved, married, or about to be. Ginny and Neville got together during the war, I would be extremely selfish if I got in the way of that."

"So you take in your godson, but you are about to do something that could leave him alone for the rest of his life," she said.

"No, not alone. I've already taken care of that. The thing is that in order to do something like this you have to take risks. If you're to improve on the world, if you want to make a difference, you got to take the chance that one day you won't come home. I'm good at that."

"Why not just take him with you?"

"Because he's the only one who knows everything I've done here. If something happens to me he'll be able to learn from it and make it so no one else ends up like I might," Harry explained.

"And no one else can do that?"

Harry shook his head, "No one else has the same grounding as I do in both science and magic in order to do it. The procedures and such are all written down, but Teddy is the only one who truly understand them right now. He's the only one aside from me that can bring it all together."

Harry took a moment to gather his thoughts, "Besides, I get the feeling that I need to do this alone. That something amazing will happen when I activate that jump drive for the first time. And even then, I know without a doubt that I'll end up back home."

"It almost sounds like you believe that God has a plan for you," she said, a bit of laughter in her voice.

Harry smirked, "God, Magic, the Universe, Fate, call it what you will. I'm one of the very few people who know for certain that there is a world beyond what we call life. My first seventeen years of life were dominated by a prophecy which was an expression of Fate. I have the ability to bend reality to my will, the gift of Magic. Quantify all of that how you will, but to me at least it's proof that there is something more then we can comprehend. If that... that higher power is what we think is God, then all we can do is try to understand as best we can."

Her arms caressed his body and he could feel her breath on his neck, "I have to admire your ability to believe, to have faith in something you can't prove or put into a simple box."

"I have to believe in something, or I have nothing."

–

_Ascension_ flew straight through the night, cutting through the space between Earth and the Moon. Harry was in the command chair on the bridge, Lily's image standing behind him on his right shoulder. Harry smiled as he watched the Moon on the screen and started pulling around into orbit and sliding through night around to the dark side of the moon. He flicked a control on the command chairs arm and said, "We are all ready here on the Dark Side, are you still receiving telemetry?"

"Yes were are _Ascension. _We are reading you five by five, subspace radio is working within expected parameters. Data from all systems is being received exactly as you expected, Uncle Harry."

"That's good Teddy. I am reading becon Terra-1 and have marked it in the navigation systems. I just hope that we can use this for mapping purposed eventually," Harry said.

"Don't worry about it Uncle Harry, we're going to have to start somewhere, might as well start with home," Teddy said.

Harry just smiled as his godson spoke, "Well, I'm now plotting the jump for the orbit of Mars. You're not taking notes in crayon right now are you?"

"That was back when I was four, and you wanted to try to get me learning long before anyone else would start."

"A mind is a terrible thing to waste, kid. You've got a really good one, even if you change hair color every second of the day," Harry chuckled.

"You are just lucky I'm smart for my age."

"Smarts have nothing to do with it, Teddy. Hermione is smart, you however have something that she doesn't have," Harry said back.

"What's that?"

"The ability to wonder about things beyond what is written down. Hold onto that and you'll do great things," Harry said.

There was a bit of quiet for a moment, "I'll see you on the other side, Uncle Harry."

"I'll be there kiddo. Course plotted and laid in. We are go for FTL jump. Start the clock," Harry said. This was it, the moment that he had been feeling approaching. This would be the moment that changed everything.

Teddy's voice sounded over the channel, "Jump on my mark in 5... 4... 3... 2... 1... JUMP!"

In a flash of light, and what felt like he was being pulled far far away from the small island in the Universe called Earth, Harry Potter started on what would be his next great adventure.

To Be Continued...

Authors Notes: I've been working out ideas for an HP/sci-fi cross over for a while. Frankly I have been trying to come up with something that might be interesting, like Crossing over with Galactica, or SG1, or Star Wars. It's all a lot of interesting possibilities. The problem is that when they do this a lot of the times, the magic gets lost. They try to turn it into just another aspet of the force, or quantify it into scientific theory and remove the wonder and awe behind it all. I'm going to try to not do that here.


	2. Out of the Frying Pan

Commander Potter of the Starship Ascension

Chapter 2: Out of the Frying Pan...

A Harry Potter/Battlestar Galactica Crossover

By: Legato Deathscythe

The vastness of space is hard for anyone to comprehend. Navigating the void is difficult. So much of it is empty vacuum, without proper references you could end up lost for all time. Much like the mariners of ancient times one must rely on the positions of the stars to figure out where they are. It was for this reason that Harry has setup the subspace beacon back on Earth in order to find his way in the solar system. So long as he could lock onto the Terra-1 beacon he could plot a course using it as a reference point, an interplanetary North. Of course to plot a course you needed seven points of reference, six to define your destination and a point of origin to plot your path. Harry hadn't exactly done that, he had plotted his course like one would a two-dimensional map, forgetting that space operated in three dimensions... if you were lucky.

Harry Potter defiantly was what one would call lucky. The question at any point in time though was if it was extraordinarily good or horrifically bad.

Today the answer was horrifically bad.

Before he even had a chance to check to see where he had ended up and radio Teddy with a report he felt the ship rocked hard. Lily immediately said, "We've just been hit on the port side wing. Incoming fighters of a design not on record."

"What? There isn't supposed to be anything out here," Harry practically yelled as he started flipping controls on his command chair and linking directly with the ship to take control of maneuverability. When he was connected like this it was almost as if he was the _Ascension _flying through space as instinctively as he did on a broom. He asked the question, "Where are we Lily?"

As he dodged more weapons fire from the fighters attacking him Lily checked, then rechecked. Her surprise was obvious as she reported, "I don't know. We seem to be in orbit of a planet that is currently under heavy nuclear assault. This planet shouldn't be here. I'm trying to get a star fix now."

After another shuddering hit on the port side she reported, "We're losing the port ion drive. Jump drive is damaged. We're not getting out of here the same we we came."

"Raise our defense shield, put the point defense railguns on autofire!"

All along _Ascension's_ hull doors retracted and the ends of some kind of weapon emerged. As soon as one of the strange fighters got within range they opened fire. Harry did his best to dodge the incoming rounds as the ship tried to target and destroy the attackers. Not exactly a warm welcome, and not exactly the way to make First Contact with an extra-terrestrial civilization. But to be fair, they had fired first.

Harry pulled a quick three-hundred and sixty degree turn to face his attackers. The fighters looked almost like crabs without any legs, but with the forward pincers far ahead of the fuselage. He could see some sort of red sensor scanning back and forth along what he thought might be the cockpit, or whatever these things used for control.

"Lily, are these things flying themselves?"

"From all indications yes. They are trying to upload some sort of package into the mainframe. I think it might be a cyber attack."

"Any risk for our systems?"

"No, not at the moment. It's just too different from the mainframes design, it can't even unpack itself into our data network. I've isolated it, I can't guarantee that we will remain unaffected though," Lily responded.

"Okay then, time to go on the offensive. Can you give me a target, whatever command ship these things are coming from?"

"I'm working on it."

Harry flew hard and fast towards the enemy formation. The weapons on their ships were firing what he thought were solid projectile rounds, those were now being deflected by the defense shield he had designed. Most of the shield was a runic sequence that was etched on the inside of the ship, protecting the runes from being damaged from outside. The power for these runes however was being pulled from the three CRPB's at the ships core. Harry wasn't certain how much punishment they could take over time, but he didn't want to find out in this environment. Trial by fire was not something he enjoyed.

"I have a target. The large ships in orbit of the planet seem to be where the fighters are coming from. I've scanned them, I can't be certain of anything inside there though," Lily said. If one looked at her they would see a look of intense concentration on the constructs face.

"What do you think a full power burst from the energy canons would do?"

Lily thought for a moment, "If we target the central axis it's possible we could cripple their command ship, if not destroy it completely. I can't be certain how much damage we'll cause however. That ship is heavily armored."

"So heavy plate armor but no energy sheilds?"

"Correct."

"Why would they focus on heavier armor over developing some kind of energy shield?"

He got his answer from an alarm sounding through the bridge, "Radiological alarm. I'm detecting a thirty-kiloton thermo-nuclear warhead heading straight for us!"

Harry flew hard and fast, even trying a few old Quidditch maneuvers to try to lose the missile. He turned towards the command ship and decided to lead it in. Harry quickly asked, "How will our shields hold up against that if it goes off too close?"

"It will filter out most of the hard radiation but not all of it. I can't be certain as we never considered that a possibility," Lily responded.

"Great, just great Potter. You think up as many possibilities as you can and you leave off running into people who just want to nuke you first ask questions later."

The missile was still locked on him and didn't seem to be letting off. It was then that more of the fighters launched a lot more missiles, all of them nukes. Harry couldn't help cursing. He rolled hard starboard and pointed the nose of _Ascension_ directly towards the command ship. He calmed himself and said, "Lily, keep the rail guns firing at anything that gets too close. Target the primary energy cannon for a sustained burst at the command ships central axis. Doesn't matter if it's critical or not, we just need a hull breach."

"Understood."

A powerful beam of pure energy lashed out from the Ascension's underside. The sustained beam was able to burn through the armor of the command ship, but did very little internal damage to the ship. Harry kept flying hard towards the large construct that he figured would fit maybe a few hundred thousand. He didn't know if this would work but he hoped he'd at least get a chance to make it out alive.

He through the ship hard to starboard and slingshot around the command ships central access, then headed hard and fast towards the planet. The missles however were not as manuverable. Many impacted the command ship, several detonated due to the force from the explosions. Harry didn't bother looking back as the command ship exploded, the combined explosive force of several mega-tons throwing off a blast wave that he nearly out ran. The problem is that he only nearly outran it.

Sparks started going off all over the bridge, alarms and red lights filled the screens as Harry tried to shield himself from the worst of it. Ascension was plummeting down into the planetary atmosphere quickly. "We've lost ion-drive completely, switching over to flying enchantments. Multiple hull breaches, we are venting atmosphere."

"Activate the disillusionment and perception fields. We need to cloak now and get out of sight. Try to find us a landing spot, fast."

It took Lily only a second, "Got it, approximately ten kilometers outside what looks like a major city. Caution, the entire planet seems to have been irradiated. Our landing zone should be in one of the areas of least contamination."

"Set shields to maximum, keep an eye on how much radiation is getting through."

Even if his defense systems had seen him through, Harry knew he hadn't designed _Ascension_ for combat. She was equal part explorer and experimental test bed. As he tried to slow her descent towards the planet he couldn't help but think about all the people he had left behind on Earth. He had hoped that this would just be a quick trip, but that was looking to be getting further and further from reality.

It was rough but Harry still managed to land his ship in one piece. He confirmed that they were still cloaked and fell backwards in his chair, the adrenalin draining from his system quickly. Harry looked at his hands, seeing how much they were shaking. He had hoped he had left things like this in his past. He held on hand tight in the other and asked, "What the hell was that all about?"

"Unknown," Lily answered.

Harry sighed and closed his eyes, "So how far off are we?"

"I didn't have time to get a fix on our position before we were attacked. I can tell you however that I can not lock on to beacon Terra-1," Lily said.

Harry's eyes widened at the implications, "But that beacon was broadcasting through subspace, we should be able to pick it up no matter what is between us and Earth."

"Yes, but it was only designed to broadcast within our star system," Lily explained.

Harry let that sink in for a moment. He asked, "Just how far off course are we?"

Lily looked worried as she answered, "I don't know. From what I was able to record prior to our being attacked I could only tell that none of the current star positions match from within the Sol system. Assuming that we'd still be able to tell the constellations and get a fix with the astrological data available prior to our departure within a few light years; I'd have to assume we have somehow ended up far outside our local galactic area. We'd need to know where we are in reference to Galactic Center before I could give you anything even close to accurate."

"Okay, one problem at a time. How's the damage looking?"

"Not good. We suffered significant hull damage from the initial attack. Ion drive is down from the nuclear blast, and the Jump Drive is significantly damaged. Several power transfer conduits were overloaded. The self-repair enchantments are running on ambient magic only. I've had to sever the connections to the central CRPB array to prevent us from leaking too much energy. Cloak and perception fields are online, but also only on ambient magical energy."

Harry sighed, "Time to repair?"

"Hull plating should be repaired and the ship airtight within twelve hours. The power conduits are going to take longer, as well as the Ion Drive. We won't have sublight propulsion for at least thirty-six hours. The major problem is the Jump Drive. Right now I can not give an estimate on how long it may take for it to even be capable of testing let alone plot a jump," Lily reported.

Harry ran his hand over his face, "Subspace radio?"

"We're too far out of range. We just don't have anyway of even sending a message back to Earth," Lily replied.

Harry was barely holding it together as it was. He stood up, his legs still rather shaky. He walked around a little and then said, "Ok, forcus on getting main power back online and ensure we can't be spotted by anyone right now. Once we have the little things all fixed channel the power into the repair enchantments on the Ion Drive and the Jump Drive. I'm going to go lay down and try to figure out what our next move is. That is... if there is a next move."

Harry slowly walked off the bridge, using a hand to steady himself with the wall. Before he got to his quarters he stopped in front of the door to the room Teddy had decorated for himself. Harry smiled as his hand traced the figures on the name plate, then opened the door and looked inside. He walked in and looked around slowly, seeing the touch of the boy he had raised as his own son. He picked up a photograph that Teddy had set on the night stand, one of the two of them standing in front of the _Ascension_ when they had first started building the structures.

"Don't worry buddy. I'll find a way home."

–

He had not been able to sleep since he got to his quarters. He knew what Lily had told him was true, but he had to try something. So he went to his desk, turned on his terminal and activated his subspace radio.

"My name is Harry James Potter, Lord of the Ancient and Noble Houses of Potter and Black. I was testing a new propulsion drive and I somehow got shot across the galaxy. I'm now surrounded on all sides by a genocidal enemy, that I know nothing about. I don't know where I am, or if I have anyone to call on for help. If anyone can hear me, then I just want it to be known that I'm not going to give up. I'm going to try to find a way back home. Back to a small planet called Earth."

To Be Continued...

Authors Notes: Just to clarify on a review I answered earlier. Teddy is NOT on board the Ascension with Harry. He was testing the Jump Drive and didn't want to risk Teddy dying if things went wrong. So our favorite little metamorph kid is back on Earth. I think this will give Harry a really good drive to get back home.


	3. Distant Cousins

Commander Potter of the Starship Ascension

Chapter 3: Distant Cousins

A Harry Potter/Battlestar Galactica Crossover

By: Legato Deathscythe

_November 1, 1991 – Hogwarts School of Wizardry and Witchcraft, Library_

Harry was reading through a copy of one of Arthur C. Clarke's Odyssey series while Hermione was reading a large dry tome of magical theory. Ron was working on an essay for transfiguration. The first day after the Sorting Hat had placed him in Gryffindor he had marched right to the Slytherin table. Ron had grabbed his arm and asked what he was doing to which Harry said, "I am acting in the best spirit of our house. Walking in where angels fear to tread. What angel wouldn't be afraid of walking into the snake pit?"

Of course it unnerved the Slytherins when Harry Potter instead of sitting at his house table, plopped himself unceremoniously in front of Draco Malfoy and started talking about what he could imagine in his head. One of the Slytherin Prefects got up to scare the boy and his little red haired friend, who had followed him to watch his back, away from their table. Of course his instincts said this would be a good way to one day have the ear of someone who would be very influential in the future, you don't just shrug off five years of house rivalry just like that.

"You should be over at your own table, Potter. Professor McGonagal will be passing out your timetable shortly," he said in as imperious a manor as possible.

Harry thought about it and nodded, "Catch you later, Draco. See if you can't come up with something that just seems out there and write it down. We'll talk later."

It was a confused group of snakes that Harry left in his wake. He would over the next few months throw himself into school. He had problems with theory aspects of school. For a group that talked about magic, there seemed to be so many rules to it all. You could only do this, not that. This was impossible, due to some arcane law no one questioned. You had to mix this ingredient with that no matter what for this effect. Or if you didn't want to get blown up. That at least made some form of sense to him.

Harry found that while he sucked with the theory and school work if he tried to think something through he had no problem with practical application. He transfigured a matchstick into a needle after he tossed out all the theory McGonagal had fed them and simply imagined the matchstick transforming. He listened to Professor Sprout about how the plants needed to be tended more closely, but always felt more at home tending to them as he would the garden back on Privet Drive. Granted, he needed to know what the plants preferred, but like so much he was better at application then theory.

Three days ago, Halloween in Charms they were to levitate a feather using a specific charm. Harry imagined an invisible hand reach out and lift the feather, without using the incantation. It was more difficult to do, but Flitwick's warning about mispronunciation and gravity affected buffalo scared the poor boy into doing it silently. He earned twenty points, and a verbal thrashing from Hermione Granger, who did it perfectly the way the book said.

When Ron hurt her feelings and she ran off, Harry wanted to follow but was held back by Parvati Patil. She shook her head and her and Lavender Brown both went off to check on the other girl. Harry just shook his head at the situation and tried to handle the rest of the day without feeling guilty. Not that when he noticed she was missing at the feast that night he didn't feel it. He heard from the other girls that Hermione had spent the day in the third floor bathroom on the left side crying herself sick. That didn't sit well with Harry. So, without even thinking about it he marched off to find her and drag her to the feast. It wouldn't do for her to go hungry now would it.

He walked straight into the girls bathroom and followed the sound of tears and said, "Look, Hermione, you can't let every little thing get you down. So Ron said something that got to you. Don't let it get you down like this. The world is not going to always be a nice place. Trust me, I know this all too well."

With a sniffle she opened the stall door and looked at him, "You know, this is the girls' bathroom, you aren't supposed to be in here."

Harry just smiled, "And the Halloween feast is in the Great Hall and all little children should be there."

He grabbed her by the arm, dragged her to a sink, and then pulled her out the door once she had washed her face. He pushed her into the hall, made her sit down at the Gryffindor table and filled her plate for her. Harry pulled her into a conversation about their different ways of spell casting which moved on for a while until Professor Querell ran in screaming about a Troll. All the students were lead to their common rooms and the feast continued. Harry considered himself very lucky to have avoided that, as Hermione would never have known about the danger.

Hermione was quickly pulled into Harry's small circle of friends. It was a month and a half before Christmas, but she asked, "What are you planning for the holidays coming up?"

Harry looked up from his book and said, "Well, the goblins told me Potter Manor had been rebuilt on orders from my dad before he died. It wasn't finished when they went into hiding which is why they were living in Godric's Hollow at the time. Its sat empty ever since except for a contracted group of house-elves going throw every few days to clean up and maintain the grounds."

Hermione caught on and asked, "What are house-elves?"

Harry took this before anyone else could, "From what I've been able to find out, they are a sentient magical species that obsesses on taking care of others. Cleaning, cooking, gardening, they do it all. One of the things that really upsets them is if you offer to pay for their services. It really upsets them, makes them think you don't value their work. Have to say, I'm humbled by their attitude for the most part."

Hermione raised an eyebrow, "And why is that?"

Harry just shrugged, "Dedicating yourself to serving and tending to the needs of others. Taking on the work of taking care of a house so they can dedicate themselves to some greater goal, that's impressive. An entire race of beings dedicated to serving and taking care of others, with no want or need for money or anything else, that's something to respect."

Hermione just gave him a blank look, "So you aren't really doing anything this holiday break coming up."

Harry just shook his head, "Not really anyone to go home to. Blood relations don't really like me."

"Well, what about distant cousins?" Ron asked.

Harry shook his head, "I only have my mom's sister."

Ron just shook his head, "You have a lot of distant relations. The closest that I know of are from the House of Black, on your father's side. Not that I'd be thrilled to count the Malfoy's as cousins."

Harry just blinked, "I have more family?"

"Practically every pureblood is in some way shape or form related." Ron said.

"To distant cousins then."

–

_Unknown Planet – 12 hours after Jump Drive Test_

Harry stood in front of the mirror in the washroom of his quarters. Not since he was eleven and thrown into a whole new world had he felt so lost. At least when he had found out about the World of Magic there had been hope to find a home he had never truly knew before. Those two people who he had known in his head that had given birth to him but had been denied knowledge of by a bitter relation became solid and real. In simplest terms, when he had turned eleven there had been hope. Hope was in short supply right now.

"Lily, any idea what happened?" Harry asked as he walked out of the bathroom.

"Indications are that there was a sudden influx of energy halfway through the jump. I know it didn't come from the CRPB room. The sensor logs also indicate that we passed through a strong gravity field, but aside from that no other information. I'm checking the trajectory now to see what was in our path when we jumped."

Harry sighed, "And repairs?"

"Hull repairs are complete. Power conduits and internal damage is only at seventy percent. Primary sub-light drives are still offline and estimates are looking at almost seventy-two hours above initial estimates. Still no estimate on time to repair the jump drives," Lily replied.

Harry fell into a chair and sighed, "We don't have a lot of supplies. I only intended it to be a day, three at most before returning. You pick up anything while I was asleep?"

"Several distress calls, radio communications overlapping on top of each other, and transmissions of some kind which seemed to be computerized in nature that I can't even begin to guess at. Even then, the verbal communications I've detected are almost no help right now, and quite frankly have ceased. I've recorded and stored them in the main database, but the problem is that I do not recognize the language. A translation matrix will take some time, if at all possible to generate for our comm systems," Lily said. That was something he should have expected, the planet had been in the end stages of a nuclear attack.

"How bad is it out there?" Harry asked in a quiet voice.

"We're on the outskirts of one of the major cities on this planet. A nuclear weapon detonated over the city, it's destroyed a good portion of it. The radioactive fallout is moving in the opposite direction of our landing zone. I've modified the shields to reflect ninety-nine percent of the radiation back into the local environment. We should be okay for the time being at least from radiation poisoning."

Harry closed his eyes and rubbed his temples, "All that fallout means that the local water and food supply is going to be contaminated."

Harry left his quarters and started on his way to the bridge. He started thinking about what to do as he did. "Water isn't going to be much of an issue, the water conjuration enchantments should do us just fine. Food is going to be a problem though."

"Emergency stores should provide sustenance for at most a week, maybe two if stretched."

Harry sighed, "Anyway we can possibly come up with a way to break a few magical laws?"

"I don't know," Lily said.

"Perfect. Water, Water everywhere but not a drop to drink," Harry said.

"We have plenty of water," Lily responded.

"Maybe but the principles the same."

Harry sat down hard in the command chair and leaned back. He thought for a few moments and then asked, "Once the Jump Drive is back online, how long will it take us to get back home?"

Lily didn't immediately respond. Harry looked up and looked at what he thought of as the soul of this ship and asked, "Lily?"

"I can't say. Right now I have no idea where we are in relationship to Earth. I can't even give you an idea in relation to Galactic Center," the intelligence behind the ship said, almost irritated at her inability to give a definite answer.

Harry closed his eyes in thought, trying to come up with a good strategy. He was in a bad spot. He had no idea where he was. He had no idea what the situation was. He knew that there was a war on, but what were the sides? Obviously one side at minimum was capable of planetary bombardment, but were they from the same planet? So much he didn't know, and quiet frankly he couldn't risk doing anything until he knew. Running wouldn't be an option until the Jump Drive was repaired, and there was no way to know what kind of state it would be in after the auto-repair enchantments finished up their work. If he had to he could at least start up the flying enchantments and get the _Ascension_ moving to a better location. He wouldn't be able to break gravity until the sub-light Ion Drive was repaired.

Then he had the thought that would keep him up awake at nights if he didn't act. What about the people on this planet? Where there any people on this planet now? With planet being nuked from orbit how long before it would be uninhabitable? Harry had to admit he didn't know a thing about nuclear weapons, only what he had heard when he was a kid in the media. Who knows how much of that was true, assumption, or propaganda. Didn't matter at this point, he needed to collect as many folks from this planet as he could and then try to figure out what next. His "Saving People Thing" would not be denied, especially when he could save people from a nuclear Armageddon. Didn't matter that he might be encountering something so vastly different from himself, he had a moral obligation to assist.

At least in his mind he did.

"Lily, activate all sensors and try to locate any and all survivors you can. I know we have quarters for twenty people on board, how many can we get on using other methods?" Harry asked. Moving quickly now that he had decided on a course of action.

"While we have quarters for twenty we have vast amounts of space for other uses. Due to the number of space-enhancement charms and pocket dimensions spread through the ships structure we could theoretically carry upwards of three to four hundred. This is of course without modifications to interior dimensional specifications. Theoretically we could extend that to approximately one thousand refugees. However we would run into problems with supplies. We may be able to raid several spots prior to departing the system, which I would recommend in any case due to our own dwindling resources," Lily reported.

Harry nodded, "Any rooms we setup just to see what we could fit in here?"

"None that would be easily utilized for refugee housing. We do have the world room, however we didn't build any shelters within it. It is mostly just recreations of the grounds at Hogwarts Castle, minus the castle and other structures."

He nodded at that thought, "Maybe, but the world room has complete control over the environment so it shouldn't be discounted."

"All of this ignores certain other problems. We still have no knowledge of where we are in the galaxy and so no way to plot a return trip back to Earth," Lily said.

After a moment of thought Harry turned and left the bridge. He walked first to his quarters and changed clothes. He wore some dark brown riding boots, khaki slacks tucked into the boots, a button up shirt and tossed a reddish-brown kneel length coat over it all. He check his arm holsters, finding his wand in his right, and the wand he took off of Riddle on his left. He then headed towards the lower deck to the _Ascension _and spoke, "Okay, I want you to take off using flying enchantments. Keep the cloak running and scan for life signs. We'll pick up as many as we can. I'm going to prep the Thunderbolt for take off and start figuring out where we need to get that information. If we are lucky we'll be able to pick up someone who knows how to navigate from this system."

Lily then tossed the monkey wrench in the works, "Assuming for the moment that the residents of this star system have FTL flight. This could just be an invasion from a superiorly advanced culture. Not morally acceptable to either of us, but a possibility."

Harry shook his head, "Even if that is the case, they may have local star charts and other astronomical data we can use. Anything to help us get our position in relation to GC."

"Understood sir. We are currently at an altitude of five hundred feet, mean sea level. Sensors are picking up a group of twenty beings progressing in a direction away from the blast area. Moving to intercept and take on passengers," Lily reported.

Harry nodded and checked out the systems on the Thunderbolt in what could have been considered his hanger bay. It was at the base of the ship with doors on the underside that would open, a modified version of the bubble-head charm extending over the opening so something to pass through coming or going but still maintain pressurization in the bay. It also had enough room to where he could fit in maybe three or four other small craft if he had them built. So far the only one he had was the Thunderbolt.

As soon as all systems checked out he went to the cargo bay near the back of the ship. On the outside the Ascension was very sleek, very aerodynamic, and frankly very thin. Thanks to the magic used in the space expansion and pocket dimensions through out the ship it was much larger. The outside was maybe the size of a super-sonic jet, while the inside was maybe the size of a small naval cruiser.

As the loading ramp lowered he raced down and was rather shocked to see what looked like Human beings headed his way. He ordered Lily to drop the cloak and perception field and walked down to the approaching crowd, all carrying anything they could get their hands on. He whipped out his wand and as they got close fired off a gunshot sound to get everyones attention.

"Thank you, now will everyone just remain calm for a moment."

The incomprehension of the people in front of him reminded Harry that Lily hadn't been able to come up with a translation matrix for the communications they had intercepted. This meant they didn't speak the same language he did. No one would understand him at this moment. He looked through the crowd, and saw a man dress in black, with what looked like a black fedora to him. Harry gestured for the man to step forward and started speaking to him. The man just shook his head not understanding and started talking back to Harry.

It took him a moment, but with a flick of his wrist his wand was in his hand and he started casting a universal translator charm. He spoke back to the man, trying to give him a general introduction. After he was done he motioned for the man to speak back. After a confusing few minutes the charm had enough information to allow them to communicate.

"Thanks, I know it didn't make sense to you but it takes a bit for a translator charm to put together a matrix in order for us to understand each other," Harry explained.

"Translator charm?" the man in black asked.

"Yea, it was developed so that people who didn't know one language could at least talk with people who spoke another one. It works with most human languages... though when ever I've tried it with Goblins and their native tongue it seems to translate, 'I shall feast on your rotting corpse,' into, 'Don't run, we are your friends.'"

"Goblins?"

Harry smirked, "Probably never saw them before on this planet. But to be fair I wasn't expecting to find a different planet with human beings as the population when I went to test out my Apparition Jump Drive yesterday. Of course I didn't' expect to leave the system either so it's been a day of surprises for all around."

"Wait, you're saying you're NOT from the Colonies?"

"Nope, from a small little planet, not even capable of FTL flight for the most part. I just seemed to have miscalculated something. Not sure what yet but Lily's working on that while the systems are being repaired from when we got attacked. Quick question, what's the commander of a ship called in your fleet?" Harry turned back to the rest of the crowd.

The man seemed a bit amused and answered, "Commander, it's an actual rank in the Colonial Navy."

Harry nodded and turned to the crowd, "Alright folks, my names Harry Potter and I'll be your ships Commander for the foreseeable future. I just need you all to come on in and set up where you can find space for now. We'll figure out something better when we have the time. For now, just come on in and get comfortable. You sir, what's your name?"

The man in black answered, "Cavil, John Cavil."

Harry nodded, "Okay, Mr. Cavil for now I need you to help out. Anything that's needed, let me know. Also, see if you can find someone who has experience navigating this system."

Cavil nodded, "I'll see what I can do. You never said where you come from."

Harry looked at him and mentally shrugged, "You've probably never even heard of it. I'd be surprised if you called it or the star it orbits by the same name. We just call it Earth."

Cavil looked startled for a moment, "Did you say your world was called Earth?"

Harry was feeling rather suspicious and uncomfortable, "Yes. Not that unique a name I imagine. I mean, it's a synonym for ground, dry-land, soil. Heck we call our moon, The Moon. And as interesting as discussing what planets have what names I think we should get going as fast as possible."

Cavil nodded and watched as Harry moved out of the cargo bay, "By your command."

–

It went on like that for the next three days, picking up small groups of survivors and finding space for them in the ship. So far John had introduced Harry to a pilot/navigator by the name of Leoben Conoy, Harry just called him Leo. They had managed to raid a few places to get needed medicine and food stores, but Harry knew it was only a short term fix. Ascension's systems were almost completely repaired, after he personally went and looked at the Ion Drive and managed to speed up the work of the repair enchantments. While they had the ability to break orbit they still lacked FTL and that would put them in a bad position to get out of the area.

The cargo bay had taken on the look of a shanty town, so far everything was going as well as could be expected. Fortunately they had picked up a few doctor's and nurses who were helping the civilians. They had also picked up an old retired Colonial Engineer named Jacob "Just call me Chief" Tellus that was for now studying the ships systems. He was also double checking Harry's Apparition Drive in order to see if he could figure out if it was safe to try again.

They were cloaked and moving towards one of the coast. Harry wanted to see if they could pick up anything this far out from what he had learned had been called Caprica City, and he was on the planet Caprica. The names of all the Colonies seemed very familiar to him, but he couldn't figure out why. He hadn't spent too much time working on it. Lily had located what appeared to be a Colonial military post along the coast and they were going to land there and see what they could salvage.

Harry was rather shocked when John told him that the rest of the refugees would be uncomfortable about Lily's existence. Apparently the Colonies had banned research and development into Artificial Intelligence after the First Cylon War. Harry had shook his head when they told him about that. Frankly, even though he was horrified at the loss of life he had to admit that he thought the Cylons deciding to revolt and fight for their freedom was rather impressive. Harry asked if it was just a logical conclusion that the Cylons had come to or if it was more then that. His question confused both Leoben and John until he clarified.

"Was it just a logical conclusion that they should be free, or was it a desire to choose their own destinies?"

"Does it matter?" John asked.

"Well, either way they came to that conclusion and I can respect it. But if it was more then logic, if it was a true desire and a hope to get a better future that makes it all the more miraculous to me. It means that from all that engineered and controlled system that something spontaneously took root and evolved. That seems all the more compelling to me."

He was disappointed to find out that no one had bothered to find out and just tried to destroy the creations that had decided to turn on their masters without even answering the question of why. He had learned that the Cylons had been the ones to attack the colonies this time after forty years of not even bothering to contact the Colonies. It seemed unprovoked but Harry was smart enough to understand that something might have happened that hadn't been shared with the public. He just didn't know what it might have been.

They landed and everyone started filing out through the loading ramp. The need to spend some time on solid ground and to have as many hands as possible gathering together everything they could was important. The wind was blowing the hem of Harry's coat back as he, Leoben, and the Chief checked the hangers. Harry saw a few small craft and asked, "Hey Leo, what do you call these things?"

Leoben was over by a more squat shuttle looking craft and answered, "Looks like a squadron of Vipers. A bunch of Raptors too."

Harry thought about it for a moment, "Think we might want to get some of these into the docking bay?"

Chief answered back, "Don't think we have the capability to launch the vipers like they do on a battlestar. We could probably use the Raptors though for scouting."

Harry nodded, "Room shouldn't be a problem, I can just adjust the bays dimensions to give us more space. I think we'll grab all of it and see what we can do about just storing them. Just because we can't use them now doesn't mean they wouldn't come in handy in the future."

"Your ship just isn't built for combat. Yea, I know you put some defense weapons on it, but mostly their just proof of concept," Leoben said.

Harry nodded, "True enough. Of course, _Ascension_ is more then a static shell around a lot of pocket dimensions. If we can gather around enough material, and I'm not just talking spare parts but just pure matter, then Lily can for lack of a better term 'grow' the areas we need."

Chief just shook his head, "You know, if it weren't for the fact that technology on your ship is so different from Colonial and what we know about the Cylons I'd wonder if she actually was one."

"Well, as far as Earth is concerned the Twelve Colonies of Kobal don't even exist. Neither do the Cylons. And of course this is assuming my Earth is your Myth-Earth," Harry said as he inspected a Viper MK-VII.

A chuckle from the door answered that and Harry looked up to see Cavil approaching them, "Still not willing to admit your world and the one in the scrolls are the same one?"

Harry just shook his head with an amused smirk on his lips, "Not until I have reason to think so. I've got a bunch of reasons to think otherwise, and only one theory that even comes close to thinking it's possible."

"Not willing to accept the notions and scriptures that go into rather intricate detail about your homeworld?" John asked.

Harry just chuckled, "You mean the details on Myth-Earth. I'm the first to admit that a lot didn't make it into the historical records over time. But unless this Thirteenth Tribe just decided to toss it's technology in the sun and mix in with the native population I don't see any evidence to corroborate that. Sure, it looks to me that people on Earth and the people in this start system are distant cousins. Doesn't mean that another colony of yours is on my homeworld."

Before anyone could say another word there was the click of small arms having their safeties taken off. Harry just kept himself calm and slowly raised his hands over his hand and turned around. He just fixed a friendly smile on his face as he spotted the men all in what looked like flight suits, some in black tactical armor, and one man wearing a blue uniform he assumed was Colonial Military. Harry wasn't familiar with the rank insignia for this particular force so he just waved a hand and said, "Hi."

"I want everyone of you to step away from the craft and all of you place your hands on your heads," the fellow in the blue uniform said.

"No offense meant here Mate, but all I got are civilians and we're just looking for supplies and anything else that can help us get out of here."

"You are in a restricted area. I don't care how many of you are civilians. All supplies in this depot are being mobilized to combat the Cylon threat."

Harry looked around, the Chief was reaching for something in his tool belt, Leoben seemed to be slowly backing away from the Raptor to a better position to be seen. He couldn't tell about Cavil at this moment. He just couldn't risk the danger to the people under his protection. So he decided it was time to demonstrate his power in a more... overt action.

With a flick of his right wrist every handgun was ripped from the Colonials hands, after ducking and flicking his wands into his hands he cast a shield spell between his people and the Colonials and then transfigured the rifles into snakes. The hardened soldiers all yelped in shock as the snakes were dropped on the ground. With another flick of his wand the snakes turned back into rifles.

"So, can we talk about this in a civilized manner or are we going to have to get mean about this?"

No one was willing to say anything at the sight. Everyone on both sides was rather shocked at this. Harry just sighed and whipped his wand towards empty space, creating a simple chair to sit on, he had never much liked the elaborate conjuration Albus preferred. Nothing personal, he just thought it was a bit over done style wise. He conjured a second chair as he sat in his and gestured to it, "Have a seat, lets talk."

The solders eyes were wide at the display. The one in the blue uniform however seemed unphased by this display of magic. He sat down across from Harry, his back ramrod straight. Harry could see the look in the mans eyes, he was a hardened soldier and wasn't going to let his men see him caught off guard. There were worry lines along his eyes, which reminded him of Alistor "Mad-Eye" Moody. This guy was an experienced fighter, of that Harry had no doubts.

"So, introductions. My names Harry, I'm from a planet called Earth. I am what we call a wizard and can do things like change your rifles into snakes or make you look like a woman. Who are you?"

"Major Jack Castleman," the officer responded, not sounding too happy about this.

"Well, Major, how many folks you got here?"

The major just raised an eyebrow, asking Harry silently if he actually expected an answer. Harry just sighed and said, "Look, Major Castleman, We've been flying under cloak the last few days and so far you are the only military personnel we found. Sure, we've got some retirees on board but aside from that, no one from your military has been found by us at least. I understand you want to strike back against the invading forces, but lets face it. This war is over, it's time to get out of here and save what you can. I admit, if the situations were reversed I would and have been fighting what seemed like a lost cause. But you got to ask yourself what's more important. Fighting a war you can't be certain you'll win, or honor the first duty of any soldier. Help me protect these people and get them somewhere safe."

"Alright, even if I were to help out on this, what then? We have two squadrons of fight pilots and one squadron of Raptors. I have a contingent of Marines. You have one ship that doesn't look big enough to even hold all of us, let alone any of these."

Harry just smirked, "We can get around that no problem. If I can turn your rifles into something wiggly, what makes you think I can't fit all this into a specific space?"

Major Castleman just looked at him quizzically. Harry smacked his hands into his knees and practically bounced up out of his chair. "Well folks, lets get to work. Chief, get with the pilots and get these fighters in the _Ascension. _Leo, find us all the spare parts and junk you can, we need all the matter we can get our hands on. We'll need as much as possible for the expansion. Major, if you'll come with me you can help me figure out the best way to reorganize my Docking bay to accommodate your Vipers and Raptors."

Major Castleman directed his people to follow the Chief while harry lead him into the ship. The Major was amazed, but didn't show it. Walking through the Ascension was like walking through the corridors of a battlestar, it was so big on the inside. Harry led him to the bridge and brought up what appeared to be a floating image of the ship.

Lily appeared out of no where and startled the Major, "Harry, I've managed to get the Apparition drive back online with the Chief's help. Fortunately the assistance has cut down on our repair time. I would however recommend we have the calculations checked and perhaps have the functions of the Jump Drive checked against the proven FTL coils on board the Raptors. Some of the farmers we picked up yesterday have started trying to prepare the world room for growing crops in certain sections. Several people have asked about setting up shelters within the world room as well, instead of living in the cargo bay."

Harry just nodded to them, "See what you can do in the world room to accommodate them. Having the extra cargo space will make our lives easier all said and done."

"Very well. Also, I believe I have an answer as to how we were thrown so far off course and outside the range we were attempting to jump," Lily answered.

Harry perked up at this, ignoring the Major's discomfort, "What do you think happened?"

A display of the Sol System replaced the _Ascension's _representation in the center of the room. A line stretched from Earth orbit to the orbit of Mars. Harry got the feeling he knew what lily was about to say even as she said, "Ir appears our path for the jump would have taken us extremely close to the Sun. The increased energy and gravitational forces may have bled into our Jump, propelling us much further along this line. If this is the case we are lucky we weren't shot straight out of the galaxy in general. As it stands we're somewhere along this trajectory I believe. Theoretically we could plot a return trip along that line of trajectory, assuming for the moment that it is accurate and hasn't been skewed by the gravitational influences of this cluster of stars we are in."

"Cluster?"

"From the navigational data we've recovered I can now paint a better picture of this area of space. There are four stars in this cluster, Helios Alpha through Delta. We are on Caprica which orbits Helios Alpha with Gemenon as a sister planet nearby."

Harry nodded, "Interesting. Major, was there any communications leading you to know where we should go to link up with anymore survivors?"

The Major just looked at him hard, "You have a frakking AI on this ship?"

Harry seemed unconcerned, "If that helps you comprehend what Lily actually is, then yea."

"Do you know the kind of trouble you are in? There's a reason AI's are forbidden," Major Castleman said.

Harry just turned on him and said, "Just because you folks saw your AI based creations spark sentience and decided to nuke it doesn't mean we have. Back home on Earth we've discussed the moral implications of such a thing for decades, even though we're really no where close to it. Lily isn't so much a sentient computer as she is the living representation of the soul of the _Ascension_. Just because we're distant cousins of a species doesn't mean your laws apply on board MY ship. Let's get that straight right now."

Harry was so upset for a moment his eyes actually flashed with an internal glow. Major Castleman growled, "What are you?"

"On my world I'm what's known as a wizard. A wielder of Magic, capable of things normal men and women could only dream of. From what I can tell your people have no magic users on this world. I haven't been able to find any of them or evidence they exist. I won't discount it though as I know we tend to hide back on Earth so I can't discount the possibility they hid themselves here as well," Harry explained. He waved his hand in the direction of the holographic image and the _Ascension _replaced the planetary display. Harry turned towards it and growled, "Now tell me what would be a preferable configuration for the ship to accommodate your craft."

It was tense as Castleman and Harry worked out the details. Lily had taken the commands and reorganized the design, adding launch/landing bays on either wing which would take up the entire wing of the ship to connect it to the central fuselage. Aesthetically it retained it's almost avian like appearance. The ship however would increase in outside size to something closer to four times it's current size. Internally the ship would still be much larger then on the outside, but new quarters would be made in order to bunk all the crew and passangers. At the Major's insistance the Pilots would share bunks, six to a room, in order to maintain military discipline. Harry allowed it, making sure Castleman knew what the chain of command on this ship was.

Castleman left to see to his men just as John and Leoben entered the bridge. The pair looked at each other and then back at Harry with a questioning look. Harry just sat back in his command chair and closed his eyes, "I think the Major might be a problem in the long haul. Just what I need."

"Didn't take too well to Lily, did he?" Leoben asked.

"Nope, not that I care. Instead of celebrating a miraculous event they tried to nuke it. Then has the audacity to come onto my ship, when I'm saving his ass from death by radiation poisoning and say I've violated laws that quiet frankly I'm not beholden to. If I were a different man I'd leave him behind but I'm not."

John stepped up and said, "The human condition leads to the fear of something they don't or can't understand. Combine that with how bloody the First Cylon War was and you get a lot of people afraid of their toaster suddenly talking back to them."

Harry just snorted, "I think a talking toaster might be kind of annoying. Always sitting there asking if I would like some toast or other browned bread product. But I get your meaning."

Leoben was checking something at navigation when he said, "I've noticed when ever you talk about what Lily is you tend to just say to think of her as an AI if it helps you understand. Why is that?"

Harry turned towards him and smiled at the thought of what he had done, "Because saying the Lily and any general Artificial Intelligence is the same thing is the same as saying a hill and a mountain are the same. Technically accurate but sorely understating the truth. Lily isn't just an AI. She's the living breathing representation of every hope, every dream, every desire I put into building _Ascension._ She is the ship, its heart, its soul."

Leoben thought for a moment and then said, "You ever wonder, if God looked down on man and seeing what he became, decided to give souls to another creation?"

Harry thought about it for a moment, "Well, I know for a fact that at least on Earth there a lot of non-human sentients on the planet. They hide for the most part from the general population. Magic users like me however know about them and even socialize with them."

John looked rather interested, "Non-human?"

Harry nodded, "We got goblins, centaurs, giants, veela, merpeople, and a host of other species on the planet. One of my best friends when I was in school was a house-elf. Heck, when I was twelve my best friend and I made the mistake of stealing his dad's enchanted flying car and flying it to school. We crashed into the Womping Willow on the grounds, and after getting smashed about for a bit and tossed to the ground got spat out with our things, and it ran off into the forest. Thing became self-aware right on the spot. I think he still chases the thestrals at night."

John and Leoben exchanged a glance. John said, "You're saying that a car was brought to life?"

Harry nodded, "Old one too. Magic does some crazy things, even beyond what you think could happen."

Leoben nodded, "If you can make a chair out of thin air whose to say what it can do."

Harry nodded, "And I'm not even the best at theory. I've always had better luck just putting it all together to do what I want. Granted, I wrote down everything I could about what I did and documented it, but to be honest someone else probably needs to go through and check what I wrote. Make an interesting read I'm sure."

Soon they had collected all the scrap material and unusable ships as they could. They had found four atmospheric shuttles, two of which were still usable and slotted to be store in the main hangar. The rest were canabilized for parts and the spare material added to the pile. Lily then took all the matter and began "growing" the new bays the _Ascension_ would need. She expanded so much and grew to a size much larger then she was. She was now half a kilometer long and had thicker wings, the landing decks extending the entire length from the tip of the wing to the main body of the ship. It was still a sleek black color, but more militaristic now as the main body had thickened up significantly. The angles still flowed, but Harry frankly preferred how it had looked before the adjustment. Lily assured him that they could refit the _Ascension _back to it's original design easily enough. Still, it felt like a betrayal in a way to what he had hoped she would be. Not a ship of war but something flying a flag of peace.

He excused himself from the bridge and directed the others to get some rest. They'd take off in the morning and try to catch up with whatever other survivors were out there. The trip would be long and arduous for everyone. A part of Harry wanted to drop everyone of these folk off with their people and then try to find his own way back to his home. He didn't want to lead them or their pursuers to Earth. There was just no way that would end well, he was certain of it. Still, he couldn't just abandon them without defense.

He entered his quarters and pulled off his coat, laying it across the back of a chair. He walked towards the bed and collapsed on it. He sat his glasses on the bedside table and closed his eyes. It had been a few days, but now that they had everything they needed it wouldn't be so bad now. He just wanted to get back into space, on his way back home. Back to his family.

–

Leoben and Cavil were meeting in quarters Harry had given them. All his regular quarters were filled up, and the building in the world room was still on going. There was a knock on the door and Leoben got up and opened it a crack. When he let the person it, Cavil recognized it was a Six walking in. This one had changed her hair color to a deep red and her eyes a deep green. Leoben raised an eyebrow at this and asked, "What name are you going by with the Colonials?"

"Rose Evans. I needed to differentiate myself from the six working with the defense ministry enough to where no one would give me a second look," she said.

Leoben chuckled a bit and looked at Cavil, "Now that is a big coincidence."

Cavil just waved it off, "Looking for God in statistical improbibilities is a pointless exercise in futility."

Rose raised an eyebrow, "Am I missing something?"

"Just that our Commander's mother had hair and eyes like that, and his grandmother just happened to be named Rose Evans," Leoben answered.

Rose looked concerned, "Do I have any thing to worry about?"

Cavil shook his head, "Not unless you've been to the mythical planet known as Earth."

"There have been rumors. Whispers about how Commander Potter is from the Thirteenth Tribe," Rose mentioned, taking a seat with the men.

"Don't let him hear you say that. He's been very specific about how he isn't convinced that his Earth and the one in the Sacred Scrolls are the same," Leoben mentioned.

"He's also made it clear that as far as he's concerned any Cylon that approaches him personally, as long as they don't start a fight, isn't going to be automatically attacked. Of course knowing our brethren that's not a likely possibility. He'll be forced to decide whether or not to fight us or not. He's taken on responsibility for the people on his ship," Cavil said.

"Are there any others of us on board?" Rose asked.

Cavil shook his head, "No, just us three."

"So what is the plan now?" Leoben asked.

John steepled his fingers in front of his mouth, "For now we keep cover. We watch and wait. Potter is a wild card, his abilities may make him a more formidable obstacle to our objectives then we can handle at the moment."

Rose frowned, "Any ideas on how he was able to do that?"

Cavil shook his head, "No. He calls it magic. Apparently there is a small percentage of the population on 'Earth' that has the same abilities. He's even able to cloak this ship not only from being seen with the eyes but from all our sensors. To say nothing for the fact that it's bigger on the inside then on the outside."

"And that it 'grew' the needed landing bays to get the Vipers, Raptors, and shuttles on board. He claims he got here by accident, that a test of his Jump Drive somehow went way off course. He claimed it was experimental and that this was the first test. I'm tempted to believe him," Leoben said.

"It doesn't matter in the long run. Our extermination of the Human pests will simply have to take into account Potter's homeworld," Cavil said.

The three Cylons all agreed.

To Be Continued...

Authors Notes: Sorry for the folk who think the story moved way too fast in the last chapters. Fact is, at least as far as the combat is concerned time moves very fast, very suddenly in those situations. Followed by periods of deadly and worrying boredom. I've also been tossing in some extra abilities for the _Ascension_, bordering on it becoming almost like the TARDIS. I figure it's not out of the realm of possibility with a Magic spacecraft. Hogwarts itself was able to reconfigure it's internal structure at will. It's not out of the believability. At least I don't think so. It's a Frakking Magic spaceship for Fraks sakes.


	4. Lost Souls

Commander Potter of the Starship _Ascension_

Chapter 4: Lost Souls

A Harry Potter/Battlestar Galactica Crossover

By: Legato Deathscythe

_Colonial Air Station – Caprica - Five Days after the Fall_

The next day Harry woke up and started his morning rituals. He asked Lily for an update, to see if anything had happened overnight that he needed to be aware of. So far nothing major, but Harry was starting to wonder. The second day out they had raided several public libraries, hospitals, and even managed to find food supplies that hadn't been dangerously contaminated. Lily projected that they had enough supplies for their current population for at least a month. Harry had a few ideas in his head that popped in after the expansion the day before. He was going to look into them and start on some designs. He also had a thought.

"Lily, what are we going to do about fuel for all those smaller craft?"

"Right now, we have loaded this bases reserves and I've setup ways for them to fuel the Vipers. However, we don't have the necessary facilities or people with the skills to refine any of the Tylium the Colonials use as fuel," Lily reported.

Harry nodded as he chewed on an energy bar, "What about the Thunderbolt?"

"The Thunderbolt, like the _Ascension _uses a CRPB as it's energy source. A CRPB is capable of providing much more energy then liquid fuel," Lily said.

Harry nodded, "Can we modify the Colonial craft to run on the CRPB's?"

"We would need to significantly modify them. Also, it takes time to manufacture them. We don't have many spares on hand," Lily said.

Harry thought about it for a moment. He sipped some tea and asked, "When you deconstructed all that spare matter yesterday, you basically broken it down at the atomic level yes?"

"Yes."

"So could we adapt that to serve our needs for food and other supplies? Break down excess matter and recombine it into what we need like fuel, food, CRPB's?"

Lily thought on that for a moment, "Theoretically it is possible. We however would need mass to break down."

Harry tossed on his coat and left his quarters. "I think I've got an idea. Let's get to the bridge and I'll use the holo-imager to show you what I'm thinking."

He entered the bridge and greeted Leoben. Lily had modified the interior of the bridge to provide for more stations. There was a navigation and helm control in front of the Command chair that Harry could use to mentally take over flight control if he needed to. Lily had also gone and added a large viewscreen ahead of the stations, which right now was displaying a rather nice sunrise. There were other stations on either side as well as a larger navigation area behind the Command Chair in a little alcove that could also serve as a small conference area for Harry and whomever was eventually rounding out his bridge team.

After a moment to reflect on the new day, Harry got to work on the holoimager. He moved parts around, eventually creating what looked like a bookshelf but with only one shelf about five feet off the ground in the image. He worked some of the internals and asked for some assistance from Lily.

When he was done he noticed Leoben looking over his shoulder and said, "Lily, what do you think?"

"Congratulations, you have created what looks to be a molecular replicator. I will have to modify it for larger scale production for the repair bay. However, I'm not entirely certain it can be used to provide the fuel for the small craft," Lily said after she was able to analyze the construct.

Harry nodded, "I get that, but this will fix out more pressing needs. Also I might have an idea for that. Let Major Castleman know I'd like to meet with him as soon as he can today. And weren't there some civilians that were working on cultivating parts of the World Room?"

"Yes, though it will be some time before there is any progress on that along with shelters being provided."

"Not a big issue just yet. See if you can't help the civilians put together some hydroponics bays as well. Anyway we can supplement our food stores will be a big help. Maybe we can design something like an oxygen garden," Harry said.

"Very well... Commander Potter," Lily responded, amusement filtering into her voice as she said the last part.

"I can hear you," Harry said back good naturedly.

Leoben asked, "What are you planning for our 'beloved' Major?"

Harry turned to him and said, "Well, first we need someone to take helm control. We got the station, might as well use it and the others. What are the others for Lily?"

"Tactical fire-control for the _Ascension's_ defense grid. I've taken the liberty during the expansion to add a launch capability for missiles if we can find or design some. Also, using the same launch tubes we can take advantage of this situation for scientific research. We will after all be the first humans from Earth to spend as much time as we will in deep space. While I know you might have come to this conclusion on your own, I felt it prudent to plan for it myself."

Harry nodded, "Good thinking. I've been so busy trying to figure out how to save as many people as possible I hadn't given any thought to the opportunity this provides. Hell, exploration and discovery was the original purpose behind all of this."

Leoben nodded, "So best to turn a bad situation into something productive."

"Exactly, like they say on Earth. When life gives you lemons, make lemonade," Harry said, Lily's forward thinking bringing a big smile to his face.

"I've already begun initial designs on a sensor drone package that will hopefully provide us with the needed functionality," Lily said.

"Good, I'll look them over with you when we get the chance. Are we ready to get underway?"

"Yes, all supplies have been stored and all hatches secured. All personnel are on board and we are ready for launch," Lily reported.

"Excellent. Let get underway. Once we're off activate cloak and get us going. Don't jump immediately though. I want a full sweep of the system. Lets see if we can save a few more people before we leave for good. And mark this star system in our charts. Who knows. Maybe someday we'll come back and be able to negotiate a peace with the Cylons. That's IF they settle here," Harry said.

Leoben was confused for a moment, "Why can't you just use your powers to make food?"

Harry shook his head, "One of Gamps Laws of Elemental transfiguration. Non-food can not be transfigured into real food. It just changes back from the organic compounds into the inorganic it use to be. Also if you try to conjure food, while you can eat the conjuration it doesn't provide any actual sustenance. It's basically just filler."

Leoben nodded, "So there are limitations to what you can do."

Harry nodded, "The universe has a way of forcing you to work for certain things."

John walked on the bridge and took a look at the changes Lily had made over night. He walked towards Harry and Leoben and offered a good morning. Cavil then said, "You're getting your own following it seems."

Harry turned to him, looking confused, "What do you mean?"

John chuckled, "I've had ten people today already come and ask me about some rumors about you. You being from Earth, your Magic. Some of the powers you've demonstrated have only be written about in the Sacred Scrolls as belonging to the Lord of Kobal."

Harry couldn't help the horrified look that spread on his face, "Please tell me they aren't starting to think I'm some sort of god."

Cavil shared a glance with Leoben. Harry was certain they were laughing at his expense at that moment. Leoben said, "I've heard a few people refer to you as the Lord of Terra."

"Oh dear Merlin."

Cavil smirked, "Some are even starting to offer up prayers for your Divine guidance."

Harry couldn't even think up a response to that. He just stood there stunned. He slowly looked at John and asked, "Any ideas on how to stop my impending Deification?"

"You can try, but think about it. You swoop down during the Colonies darkest hour in your magical spaceship to save the people of Kobal. You come from a mythic place known only in scripture, and display powers only ever seen by the Gods themselves. Taking in all of this, regardless of how much you tell them otherwise the majority of people will leap to their own conclusions."

Harry just shook his head in disbelief. He slowly walked towards the hatch and shook his head again, "I'm going to go... somewhere and do... something."

–

Harry was working in what use to be his docking/launching bay. Now however, with the two launch bays for the vipers and the like this had become affectionately known as the garage. They hadn't gotten underway yet. Harry just didn't like the idea of leaving so many people behind on Caprica, to say nothing about the other colonies. The problem was even with space expansion charms he only had one ship, a couple squadrons of fighters, some scout craft, and a few atmospheric shuttles.

He was working on something he hoped would allow them a chance to render assistance to any ships that were drifting but still had survivors on board. As he did he heard a musical laugh and a hand brush against his shoulders.

"So should I start praying to you, My Lord?"

Harry just shook his head, "I would hope you of all people would understand my reluctance to be ascended to godhood."

"I can see it, you as the god of the unlucky of course."

Harry tried to look offended, "I'll have you know I'm very lucky."

"It's just all bad."

"For the most part it seems."

Harry just sighed and kept working on his idea. He turned his head where he thought his companion was but didn't see her. He sighed and returned his attention to a particular circuit he was working on, "Why is it you never let me see your face?"

"Because you love mystery. You don't care so much about physical pleasures, as much as you may hope to find someone to share them with one of these days. And as long as you can't see my face, I'm perfect. You of all people know how reality is so much duller then what we imagine," she said. Harry felt her hands rubbing his shoulders, relaxing the muscles there.

"I can't be their new god. I just can't bring myself to accept that level of arrogant presumption. I'm no where near divine," Harry said, relaxing into the firm pressure.

He felt a wisp of breath against his ear, "You don't have to be their god, but you can be their savior."

"I know I should just get out of here with what I've managed to save, but we only have maybe two thousand people on board. What about the millions of survivors on this planet and the other colonies?"

"Save who and what you can. I know you will do what you believe is right over what is easy. You always do," his companion said. Then as suddenly as she appeared, he was alone again. He closed his eyes and thought about things. Fate had made Riddle his personal responsibility. Now it seemed that God, the universe, Fate, Magic, whatever was giving him another seemingly insurmountable task.

He went back to work, hoping this new creation would be sufficient to aide them.

–

A full head count indicated that the _Ascension_ had taken on 2547 passengers. Length wise she was only a quarter the size of an Olympia-Class Battlstar , about five to six-hundred meters. The wings stretched out, even with the new fighter bays on the underside of the wings they stretched out almost nine-hundred meters. Aesthetically, Harry insisted on the expansion that his ship still actually look like it was meant to fly. He didn't like the idea of his ship being just a tube or some other geometric structure with rocket engines attached.

Harry took a position with Leoben, Rose, and Major Castleman were going over the radio chatter from during the attack. Castleman pointed out one specifically. It read:

_To all Colonial Units..._

_Am taking command of fleet..._

_All units ordered to rendezvous at Ragnar Anchorage for regroup and counterattack..._

_Acknowledge by same encryption protocol..._

_Adama_

"We should head for Ragnar Anchorage. Even if _Galactica_ isn't there we can arm up on munitions that might have been left behind. We'll get a better idea of where they might have gone from there as well," Castleman said.

"Assuming they haven't been destroyed. Galactica was being decommissioned just as the Cylons attacked. Even with the munitions on Ragnar, _Galactica_ would be lacking in any other combat capability," Rose pointed out.

"Adama is a seasoned commander. If anyone could keep that ship from getting blasted apart he could," Castleman pointed out.

Harry shook his head, "I won't pretend to understand military strategy or space combat tactics. But in light of everything Ragnar is the best first stop. Assuming that there are munitions to pickup and store there. I'll admit, I haven't given much thought to weapons aside from the rail guns and the primary beam canon. Lily can modify the torpedo tubes to work with the missiles. Of course I'm more interested in collecting astrophysical data along the way so I'm working on a sensor probe that can be shot out the tubes."

Cavil choose this moment to ask, "We're in the middle of a war zone, about to run for our lives and you're thinking of scientific research?"

Harry just shrugged, "The probes when I'm done will also serve as the initial backbone from a galactic relay net. They'll be cloaked, so there's no worry about them being discovered. And they will run on the subspace radio I designed. Maybe in time I can hopefully pull together a lot of data that will be very valuable back home."

"Not to mention a warning about what's out here," the Chief said.

Harry nodded, though would happen to hope for better relations between all three parties. He looked to Leoben and said, "Plot the jump to Ragnar."

"Yes Sir," Leoben said and started the calculations. Everyone broke off and assumed their duties. Harry sat in his command chair and watched as Caprica shank in the reverse view of the screen. The star cluster was marked in the database now, and after the calculations were made the ship jumped.

As soon as the jump was complete Harry closed his eyes and said, "Okay, tell me where we are?"

Leoben and Rose shared an amused look at Harry's antics and checked their screens. Leoben reported, "We've jumped directly over the Ragnar Anchorage."

Harry let out a relieved breath, "Oh Thank Merlin."

"What, you'd be disappointed if we showed up back at Earth?" John asked.

Harry shook his head, "No, I'd love that. But it's important to know that when you try to go somewhere you're going to end up where you want to go."

"It does sort of defeat the purpose to plot a course if no matter what coordinates you put in you end up someplace completely different," Rose said back.

"Lily, any signs of any other ships in the area?" Harry asked.

"Negative, there is some debris consistent with small craft, probably fighter combat but no larger pieces indicative of a large vessel."

"Okay then, lets head to this anchorage and see what we can get for ourselves, and take a guess as to where they might have headed off to," Harry said.

It took a while to get the ship docked with the large rotating mass of steal but once they did they sent a crew over to see what was available. They ended up filling the torpedo room with a large supply of missiles, as well as the remaining munitions for all the classes of weapons the colonials had available to them. Once that was done a few hours latter they took the ship out of the ion storm and tried to figure out where to head next.

–

They had probably jumped a few hundred times already. Chief had pointed out that if _Galactica _had decided to run they might have headed out away from the system. Castleman didn't think Adama would run, but Chief pointed out that he might have been in a similar situation as they were. A small military force protecting civilians. Chief said, if he was a betting man Adama might have tried something crazy, like jumping to the Promar System. It was way past the red line of safe FTL jumps and even then they probably wouldn't be there.

Cylons took apparently thirty-three minutes to calculate and plot a jump between systems. It would keep going over and over, not stopping for days at a time. So they would jump, send out some Raptors to try to find some hint of where the fleet might have headed, and jump again. They spent days, both trying to avoid the Cylons and catch up with the _Galactica._

During this time Harry would walk through the world room and other parts of the ship taken over by the civilians of Caprica. He would work with them to help them, find ways to make their quality of life better. Talk with them. He found a Priestess who had been holding services for those in the population that were faithful to the Lords of Kobal. Harry hadn't done too much research into them but was shocked when he spoke with the Priestess about them.

Harry still wasn't convinced that the people of Earth and the Thirteenth Tribe were the same. But from what the Priestess had told him he had been able to solidify a strong theory and shared it with her. "It makes sense, if you look at Pythia and correlate the time frames with what I have in the database on Earth's history."

"You're certain?" the Priestess, Elara asked.

"As certain as I can be. I'm not a historian, all I have is what's in the database. But it does fit the available information. If the Thirteenth Tribe found the same planet I call Earth say four to three thousand years ago. They would have already found a human, but more primitive group of societies having just started popping up in the Mediterranean and Middle Easter regions of the planet as well as North Africa, specifically Egypt.

"From what I can tell, your Lords of Kobal and the Gods of Olympus line up almost exactly. Greece for its time was the most advanced society on the planet in terms of learning, philosophy, science, all these things. Of course like all civilizations of the time it fell to the Romans and others. Eventually being left in ruins for people two thousand years later to try to piece together into a coherent picture."

Elara thought on this for a moment, "So your people worship these gods?"

Harry shook his head, "No, only the Ancient Greeks did. Around the time of your exodus from Kobal, there was a man born on Earth who preached the word of a single God. Overtime the faith born from his teachings spread across the globe and is today one of the big Three religions on the planet. All three are monotheistic, but disagree on certain details. I have a copy of most if not all the Holy Books in the _Ascension's_ database. I figured if I encountered a new culture that being able to exchange such things would help us better understand each other."

"An enlightened philosophy. Do you truly believe that understanding could be found between such different peoples?" Elara asked.

Harry nodded, "A few countries on my world have rules, laws that protect the freedom of Religion. They prevent the government from declaring a national faith, or denouncing one faith over the other. They've fallen at times along the way, but they always get back up."

Harry ran his hand through his hair as he thought. As he did, Elara caught sight of the scar on his forehead. The shape was what interested her most. "That mark, on your forehead. How did you come to bare it?"

Harry sighed and sat down. He gathered his thoughts, memories that even now had a way of catching him off guard. "Before I was born there was a man, Tom Marvolo Riddle, a magic user considered the best of his generation. He was raised an orphan and lived a life filled with pain, hardship, mistrust and abuse from the children he lived with. No love came from the people tasked with ensuring his upbringing. It was through this life that he began to hate others. When he found out he was a magic user he felt that made him better then those that cast him down. That because he was special that he was superior to them. He punished those who attacked him and caused great pain.

"It was a time of war, our world was fighting another great battle against darkness and death. Two men, one named Adolph Hitler and Gellert Grindelwald ended up spreading death and domination like a cancer. It was only the act of one man that stopped Gellert. His one time friend and collegue Albus Dumbledore, who was Professor of Transfiguration at Hogwarts at the time. Gellert justified his actions by saying it was for the Greater Good. And while Albus had at one time conspired with him, a personal tragedy had shown him where that path would eventually lead him. So he forsook it.

"It was during this war that Riddle gained his own following. He was handsome and charismatic and had a way of convincing you he was right. But he had a darkness to him. Dumbledore saw this, and tried to turn him away from that path. But all he could really do for the most part was keep an eye on him. An innocent man would end up being framed for a crime he didn't commit by Riddle and cost that man any chance of truly knowing magic. Albus did his best to provide for that student over the years, even giving him a job at the school. No one is really sure what happened after Riddle graduated. He fell off the radar and wasn't heard from again for years.

"When he did show back up again he was going by a new name, one he had strted going by during school, Lord Voldemort. He came preaching a philosophy of racial purety, declaring only those of pure magical blood had the right to even exist. That those who had been born from the world of the mundane should be killed, along with every other human being on the planet. His words and promises of power tempted and enticed those of pure and noble magical blood to his cause. A horrible bloody war followed. My parents fought that war, defying him directly three times and living to tell the tale.

"Before my parents knew I was coming, Albus Dumbledore, now Headmaster of Hogwarts and leader of those who would resist Riddle's dark designs was interviewing a prospective hire for a recently available position. The interview wasn't going well for the new professor, and Albus was considering just getting rid of the position, the Divination course. Suddenly the person he was interviewing stiffened and gave out a true prophecy."

Harry hadn't noticed the crowd that had gathered in the make-shift temple. He just sat down, lost in memory as he continued, "There was a spy, eavesdropping on the interview. Dumbledore was the one wizard Riddle ever truly feared at that point. Any information he could get on the old man would have been useful. The spy was caught, but not before he heard the first part of the prophecy:

_The One with the Power to Vanquish the Dark Lord Approaches..._

_Born to those who Thrice Defied him..._

_Born as the Seventh Month Dies..._

"Albus immediately hired her, to get her safely somewhere he could maintain security. The spy took the first part of the prophecy back to his Master. That's what lead him eventually, to me."

"How so?" Elara asked. Everyone was so very entranced in the story.

"On my world there are twelve months in a year. The seventh month on my world is July. Thing is that there were two children born that could have met the criteria of the part of the prophecy Riddle heard. Myself, and a boy named Neville Longbottom who was born the day before. Riddle believed in blood purity. That only those of pure blood had the right to rule, were the only ones who were truly powerful. Neville was a pureblood, I am what is considered a half-blood. By his way of thinking Neville would have been the greater threat long term. But there was something no one knew about Riddle. It was that he himself was a half-blood. So instead he went after the one who was like him.

"October 31, 1981. Fifteen months after I was born, my parents were in hiding in a small village called Godric's Hollow under what is known as a Fidelus Charm. It places the secret you want hidden within a person designated as Secret Keeper. Now, unless the Secret Keeper reveals it to you, either verbally or through something written down, no one can find out what that secret is. My parents set it up where one friend would keep the secret, while the another would act as decoy. It didn't work out, the Secret Keeper turned traitor out of fear. Riddle found us that night. He chose that night to strike because of the day. On Earth, the 31st of October is the day when the veil between the world of the living, and the realm of the dead is thinnest.

"My father told mother to take me a run. He stood by as Riddle blasted his way into the house and fought as hard as he could. It wasn't enough. Riddle killed my father then moved on to find me and my mother. There was no way for her to escape, she ran to the nursery and placed me in the crib. What happened next would haunt my dreams for years after. He told her to get out of his way. He gave her a choice, to either let him kill me or to die there as well. It was the only time he EVER gave someone a choice. She choose to stand between him and me. He killed her instantly.

"One thing you have to know, is that the curse he used is one of the three Unforgivables. It's incantation is Avada Kedavra, and presents as a bright emerald green light. Unlike a gunshot, which you have to hope you peg in a critical point to be instantly fatal, if you get hit you have a chance. The killing curse so much as touches you it's over. One second your alive the next your not, no resuscitation, no hope. Just gone. No one, no one survives the unsurvivable curse. No one until that night.

"No one is really sure what happened. There are a lot of theories about what happened, but the result is known. He cast the curse at me, and instead of dying somehow that curse rebounded on him. All I had left from that night is this scar. Riddle's body was destroyed and he spent the next thirteen years as nothing but a bodiless wraith. I was sent to live with my mother's sister."

Elara took a moment and asked, "How do you think you survived?"

Harry smiled he got up and turned as he stretched his muscles. He looked at all the people who had filled in and were sitting down listening in rapt fascination. He just shook his head and looked back at Elara, "Love is what saved me. Emotions have power, it's why the Unforgivables are Unforgivable, because they require the castor to mean it. You have to want to dominate someone, not just control their actions for the Imperius curse. You have to hate with everything and want someone to suffer to cast the Cruciatus Curse. You have to want to take life in order to cast the Avada Kedavra. And honestly these curses are so very very easy to master. Hate, love of killing, domination of those weaker, these emotions are so very easy and so very dangerous. Love, happiness, joy, kindness, those are so much harder to hold on to. While the AK is easy to learn, a charm used against certain dark creatures called the Patronus Charm is so much harder. You have to hold on to the happiest memory you can and push it into the spell. Most magic users can't do it even after years of study. I had to learn it at thirteen due to circumstances."

He looked around at the assembled masses and smiled, "I think that's enough for the time being. Didn't expect to end up with a group listening to my every word. I suppose now that I've started this story you all deserve to hear the rest. I'll tell it, but for now I think we should all get back to the job of finding the _Galactica."_

The assembled got up and started mingling, everyone discussing what they had listened in on. Elara approached Harry and said, "I think that there are many lessons to be learned from your story. Perhaps you could present it during services, it might help us understand more then most would think."

"Probably for the best. Can't stop a story like that without giving them the whole tale. I never liked not knowing the whole story myself," Harry said. He now had a weekly date to tell his tale, and what might for a time become the basis for what would end up being described as Terran-ism. Three sets of people were watching Harry as he walked amongst the people on his way to the bridge. One was lead by Cavil, who had found a view other Cylons amongst the population. A three, four, and a five had all listened in and were following the one back to a place to discuss things. One was a group with Rose, Leoben, and Chief Tellus, who fell into step behind Harry as he returned to the bridge. The other was a group of Colonial pilots, along with Major Castleman who retreated back to the port hangar deck. Two of the three groups were not talking in what one would call pleasant tones.

–

"We got to do something, Major," one of the pilots said.

"Man's fraking nuts. Magic, Dark Lords, Prophecies, and all that crap. Bastard has to be off his nut. Saying he's from Earth," another said.

"Not to mention that frakin' creepy AI of his."

Castleman listened closely, his face in deep thought, "Right now we're at his mercy. I talked with a few of the mechanics. None of them can make any sense out of any of the systems on this ship."

–

"He's gathering a following," Five said.

"They see him as a savior, a messiah," Four offered up.

"It simply a reaction to his delaying the inevitable," Cavil said.

"What about Two and Six?" Three asked.

Cavil looked at her, "They are getting as close to him as possible. I would expect a human to get aggravated with two the way he talks in circles. Potter seems to actually enjoy it."

–

"We are risking more then two-thousand lives on the hope he's not off his Gods damned rocker," a mechanic said.

Castleman looked at his people and said, "We can't do much until we meet up with the _Galactica_. Once we do, then we can hand him over to them."

–

"We could plant a bomb in a critical system," Five offered.

"And how do you plan on that? I've been in the main part of this ship and it's a maze. Bulkheads that are there one day and are gone the next. I tried to open a frakking door to get into the library, and all that was behind it was the wall. I had just gone through that door a few hours before," Cavil complained.

"Not to mention he's got at least ten square acres of land in here that as far as I can tell isn't a simulated environment. We would never be able to find the hull, let alone detonate a critical point," Three mentioned.

"Logically this ship shouldn't exist," Four said.

"Logically Harry shouldn't exist. I saw him turn Colonial rifles into snakes, and I'm pretty certain my brain hasn't been frakked up," Cavil said.

–

"How do we get past his abilities?" a pilot callsigned Flashbang asked.

"We don't. We'll let Adama and whoever else we find deal with that," Castleman said.

There was a moment of silence among the group, "Even if they do something about him, there's two-thousand civilians on this ship. We can't be certain that they even have room for these people on any other ship. Potter is the only one who has any idea how to start flying this bird."

–

"For now we wait. We can't expect the others to be able to find us. We wait until this ship catches up with the Colonial Fleet and then we take action," Cavil said.

–

"We need to catch up with Galactica. We can't do anything until we get back with the fleet," Castleman said.

To Be Continued...

Authors Notes: Thanks to all the reviews. You guys pointed out a lot of good points. I hadn't even considered the ships Cain left dead in space. That sort of thing will really piss Harry off. To the folks concerned about Harry having picked up a One... you should be. Cavil is the closest thing to a truly evil character on Galactica. One of his line actually started to change it's mind about the genocide of humanity, and he immediately boxed that one. He's unwilling to even conceder changing, and frankly, had he not had a bullet put in his head before Galactica jumped to Earth, or the Final Five had actually given the Cylons Resurrection tech back he would still be hitting every planet and leaving nothing but tomb worlds across the galaxy.

CJ-Cold, it is unfortunate, but when trying to scorer a planetary body for survivors you can miss folks. Frankly I want to leave Helo and company alone for now, if only so their storylines remain untainted.

Now, Harry at times in this seems to be doing impossible things. I understand that may make him seem Uber, God-like, Powerful, whatever you want to call it. I just want to let it be known that by himself, Harry is just Harry. Yea, he's got a lot of power. But the truth is he's mostly doing this on the fly and tossing things together. One of the things he's able to do in the books is take information available and come to a logical conclusion to fit what he knows. He's not always right, like in PS when he thinks Snape is the one trying to steal the stone and not Querell, or that Mad-Eye is really someone under Poly-Juice he doesn't put together information right in those case. But he's still able to make very intuitive leaps in logic.

I like to say that Hermione would never be able to do something like create the _Ascension. _I know she's supposed to be the smartest witch of her generation. To me, while she's an important part of the stories, she's still way too stuck on book learning and procedure. She's able to reference a lot of information, analyze it, and then provide a report on it. She's not as capable of making large scale leaps of faith or logic that something like this would take. If you asked her if it was possible to modify a charm to do something she could tell you. She just would never think of trying to do that in the first place. There are times in the books honestly where she is to me at least, the dumbest smart person in Hogwarts.

To Snowdove30, from my understanding of the Cylons and the series they are almost completely identical to a regular human. Physiologically Lily wouldn't detect anything different between them and a standard Colonial Human. I qualify this by saying Colonial human because humans in the Colonies evolved on Kobal, while Harry and the people of Earth evolved there. There's going to be differences, even if the two are genetically compatible. It took an in depth genetic analysis by Baltar to detect the synthetic nature of the Cylons. Lily just can't look THAT deep.

This AN has turned into a sort of a rant, I know, but I felt I'd get this out there.


	5. The Lord of Terra

Commander Potter of the Starship _Ascension_

A Harry Potter/Battlestar Galactica Crossover

Chapter 5: The Lord of Terra

By: Legato Deathscythe

_Interstellar Space – Prolmar System – Five days out of Caprica_

"Sir, I'm worried," Lily said as Harry sat in his quarters reading some of the Sacred Scrolls of the Lords of Kobal.

"What's bothering you Lily?"

"I'm concerned by all the people we've brought on board. I don't disagree with your decision to save everyone we could. But I am concerned. We've got such a diverse group on this ship, including the military personnel who have been programmed to be mistrusting of things like me," Lily said. She even sat down in a chair across from Harry.

"First off, you are not a THING. You are the very soul of this ship. Every hope and dream that went into _Ascension's_ construction is embodied in you Lily. Never think of yourself as just a thing. Second, we have to build trust with the Colonials. That's the only way we're ever going to build a relationship with these people," Harry said.

Lily was silent for a moment, "Is that why you told them your story, Sir?"

Harry sighed and sat the scrolls to the side. He took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose, "Partly."

"You never tell anyone the whole truth behind what you went through."

"I know, I know. I don't share personal experience much if at all. It's just that..." Harry drifted off.

"Just that what?"

Harry didn't answer immediately. The look in his eyes darkened as he said, "The nightmares are back. And it's not just Cedric, Sirius, Fred, or the others who died in the war against Riddle. It's every single human being we probably left behind on Caprica and the rest of the Colonies."

Lily was confused, "But we couldn't handle any more then we did bring on board. Even now we're stretched thin on our resources."

"I know, it doesn't make it any easier though. In some way I want them to know I'm not a god. You've listened in, I'm practically being built up as a later day Christ or whatever holy figure you want to apply in this situation. It doesn't help that I've been using Magic to help out where it's needed. These powers to those people seem to be god-like. No matter how much I tell them otherwise I can't convince them otherwise. And I can't not use my Magic. The situation is just too important for me to hide behind the Statute of Secrecy. Hell, the fact it's the International and not Interplanetary Statute is probably the only thing that will save me from Chateaus de Azkaban when we get home," Harry said.

He continued, "It doesn't help that my instincts have been all over the place lately. We are between fire and flood and I don't know what to do about it. So all I can do is what I know."

Lily was silent for a moment, "Do you want me to monitor them?"

Harry shook his head, "No, we can't build trust if we are spying on everyone. Whatever happens behind closed doors is their business, not ours. If we're going to make any headway with these people we have to respect their privacy."

"They could be plotting against us. We are only two people, even if I am the ship," Lily warned.

"I know, I know, but for now it's all we can do," Harry said. He took a sip of a cup of tea.

Lily was about to excuse herself when something raced across her consciousness. She looked at Harry and said, "We are receiving a distress call. It's faint, but I can pinpoint coordinates."

Harry got up and tossed on his reddish-brown coat, "Relay the information to the bridge, I'm on my way there. And have Major Castleman ready a Raptor to go check. We'll make the call in a moment."

Harry reached the bridge and settled into his Command Chair. Leoben and Rose were already working on calculations and going over radio and optical telescope data. The Raptor flights had also been bringing in information they were hoping would allow them to catch up. Lily brought up the estimated location the distress call was coming from on the Holo-imager. It allowed them to get a three dimensional view of the area of space they were in with all the data Lily had gathered.

The location of the call was out of their way significantly. It also had been in transit for some time, by the time they got out there they could find no one to save. Castleman pointed this out, but Harry wasn't going to just let it go like that. If there was even the chance of one survivor he was going to take it. Castleman's concerns however were why they were sending a Raptor out to take a look, and not the main ship.

An hour later when the Raptor had returned and all the other small vessels were all aboard they jumped to where the signal was coming from. The Raptor sent to check could only confirm that there was a ship in distress out there, but that there was no Cylon activity visable in the area at that time. The moment they completed the jump Harry had the cloaking field activated and Lily checking the area.

"Anything on sensors Lily?" Harry asked.

"The transport seems to be drifting. I cannot detect any indications of hostile activity in the area. I'm picking up life signs in the ship consistant with survivors. Strange though, This vessle has what looks like FTL capability but it seems to have been disabled," Lily reported.

Harry nodded and turned to Castleman, "Launch the Alert Vipers and set up a defenseive parameter. Then get the Raptors out there and get those people back to this ship, grab anything else that will help as well, supplies medicine, the works. We'll salvage what we can and get out of here." Castleman nodded and started sending orders via radio. Lily decloaked the _Ascension_ and opened a communications channel to the ship.

"This is Commander Harry Potter of the Terran Starship _Ascension," _He purposefully said Terran and not Earth in order to not have folk thinking he was nuts. "We received your distress call and are moving to evacuate your passengers. Please respond," Harry finished and waited for a reply.

"This is the _Oceanic Wanderer_ to _Ascension_, Thank the Gods you're here. We've been drifting for days and our life support is starting to fail. We've got a lot of people in need of medical attention over here," came a worried voice over the radio.

"Not a problem. We'll bring you over and get you all settled Captain," Harry replied.

It took several hours to move everyone over from the _Oceanic Wanderer_. Once that was done, Harry got a chance to speak with the "Captain" who wasn't really the Captain, just the only officer left on the ship.

"They came and stripped everything from the ship that could be used. Tylium, medical supplies, even our FTL coils. Then that bitch Cain started taking passengers and officers who could fill up her ship."

"So this Admiral, instead of helping you like she should have, took everything you needed to survive and left you to rot?"

"Yea, military necessity. Any other ship it would have been piracy. She even shot the families of those who refused to join her."

Harry shook his head and turned to Castleman, "Tell me that she can't get away with that."

Castleman shook his head, "I wish I could. However, there really isn't any authority to report to anymore."

Harry hated that. The Commander and crew of the Pegasus had committed an unforgivable act, and they would get away with it because there just wasn't anyone to hold them accountable to. Harry had to shake his head at that. End of the world, or worlds in this case, meant that there was on the law and order of the gun. The only peace at times would be the peace of the grave. He shook his head, getting rid of the morbid thoughts. He then pointed out, "It's not like we can find her anyways. And even with the defensive capabilities of the Ascension, I don't think we could win in a knock down fight against a fully armed Battlestar lead by an experienced commander."

Castleman had to admit he liked the fact that Potter seemed to know his limits, and that he acknowledged the Colonial Fleets abilities. "We think we might have an idea where _Galactica_ may be. Raptor's have cleared the closest systems, they did find debris from a civilian liner that may have been destroyed by kew weapons fire."

Harry asked,"Kew?"

"Kinetic Energy Weapons, bullets. Markings on the debris indicate it was called the _Olympic Carrier. _We also picked up readings of unexploded nuclear ordinance in the debris. It's possible that the Cylons captured the transport, killed the passengers and then tried to sneak the carrier back into the fleet in order to detonate the nukes," Castleman said.

Harry shook his head, "Classic Trojan Horse maneuver."

No one asked him to explain, Castleman's theory told them what he was thinking. Harry dismissed the Captain and turned to what had become his command crew. He had to admit he had pulled together what was in effect an eclectic mix of people. He addressed Castleman first, "Did you ever figure out what happened with your fighters during the attack?"

Castleman nodded, "We think it was the new Command navigation program created by Doctor Gaius Baltar. The Cylons were able to get through it somehow and managed to shutdown all systems. We've wiped it from all the computers and reinstalled the original software. No garrentees the Cylons won't be able to do the same thing they did before, but it's the best option we have right now."

Harry thought for a moment, "Rose, I'm going to want you and a few other of the Viper Pilots to test out the Thunderbolt. If they work for them I'll build a few more and we can try to train up a few people for flight duty. That brings me to our passengers. I don't want to press anyone into service, but we need to find something for them to do."

"What do you mean?" Leoben asked.

Harry looked at him, "Right now the majority of our civilians have nothing to do except sit and let what happened eat at them. They need something to do, something that will help them get past the Holocaust. Not everyone is cut out for farming, or gardening."

Chief Tellus offered up, "We could go through and see what they were good at. What they used to do."

"We did raid a lot of libraries on Caprica, have we taken the time to organize it all?" Cavil asked.

"So we could take the time to get people working on a library, the hard copies and scanning them into the primary database for later. I also have a large amount of entertainment recordings in the database. I tried to get a good mix of everything, but I have to admit it mostly reflects my tastes," Harry said.

"I don't know what to do about support crew. We could use some more people on the flight decks," Castleman offered.

Harry nodded, "Lets start going through our crew and get people who have obvious skills where they can do the most good. We also have a large population of children, we should get them back to school as it were."

"We'll see what we can piece together." Chief said. After that they were all dismissed. Harry settled into the Command Chair and for a moment connected himself to the _Ascension_. He allowed his mind to take in everything the ship felt. The feel of the vacuum on her wings, the winds of cosmic particles buffeting her hull, and for a moment was simply flying through space as if it was his own self.

When he came out of it he saw Leoben and Rose staring at him, "Sorry, sometimes you got to feel the wind on your wings to get a feel for the current."

"You connected with the ship directly," Leoben said.

Harry nodded, "It helps sometimes. No offense Rose, but sometimes I got to fly. I get a bit antsy when I don't for a long period of time."

"None taken, but I'd suggest not letting anyone else know about this," Rose said.

Harry snorted, "Let me guess, too Cylon like."

When both nodded he sighed, "Alright, no mind melding with the Infonet or mentally flying unless we are in a very dangerous situation around others. Good to know."

Harry got up and took a moment to watch the stars through the view screen. He then turned to the others and said, "I'm going to go down and see what I can do to help out with our new passengers. Plot the jump and let's hope we can catch up with _Galactica_ now."

As he headed down to where the civilians were he felt the telltale pull of the jump and then felt himself lean against a nearby bulkhead. He asked himself, at that moment what was right and what was easy. Leaving and just getting his own ass to safety would have been the easy path. The right path however had been to get all these people on board. The easy thing would be to forget about the larger fleet and just head on their own path. The right thing was to reconnect these refugees with their people. The easy thing was to give in to the rage building up inside him, hunt down the _Pegasus_ and slug it out with Cain. The right thing was to continue on and try to contact _Galactica_ and hope Adama was more reasonable.

As he reached the area all the new survivors were being checked out he saw the pain of loss and injury spread out across several hundred. The news of how they had ended up dead in space was spreading, and this would cause a major problem in the short term if he didn't do something about it. He just wasn't sure what.

He saw a mother clutching her child, a little girl no older then seven. Harry couldn't help but worry about how Teddy was doing at this point. He really didn't plan on this happening, and couldn't help but feel he had done the wrong thing by Teddy. How long was he going to be gone? Would Teddy resent him when he got back? He knew his friends would be able to watch over and take care of him, but that didn't really ease Harry's mind.

The Mother was crying as she cradled her child. Harry walked towards her and knealed down, "What's the matter?"

"She won't make it. There's nothing the doctor can do, she's just too far gone," the woman answered.

Harry didn't say anything for a moment. Then he placed his hands on the small child, one on her head the other over her heart. He closed his eyes and concentrated, pushing the magical energy he felt into the girl with only one purpose. To heal. To the mother and anyone else watching his hands glowed as his face held a look of deep concentration.

The child's breathing eased and after another moment she was resting comfortably. The mother looked at Harry and let out a breathy whisper, "Lord of Kobal."

Harry just shook his head, "No, just a man with different abilities."

Harry felt his energy levels take a small dip, but no where close to exhaustion. He went around, finding where he could do the most good. The people who were beyond the skills of the doctors and medics they had on board. Some he healed completely, others he brought back enough so that Colonial medicine would do the rest. By the time he was finished he was exhausted and in need of food and rest. As he left to his quarters he was too tired to hear the mutterings behind him. The people all asking questions of those who had been there longer. He had done what he could to help the people, and the people were starting to see him as a protector from the Gods.

–

Elara came to him later that night. She was not an old priestess, far from it, she was an attractive woman in her early thirties. With dark brown hair and eyes the deepest shade of blue, had she not become a priestess she would have had a career as a model in Caprica City. But Elara had no desire to be objectified. She dedicated her life to the Gods willingly and hoped she had fulfilled her duties well.

She pressed a call button on Harry's quarters, which Lily had been kind enough to direct her too, and waited. When Harry answered the door she greeted him with a small smile and when invited in she walked calmly inside Harry's quarters. She had to admit, if she didn't know better she would have thought they were in a rather nicely furnished room in any house on Caprica. Pictures adored the hearth of a fireplace of all things that had a comfortingly warm fire already burning in it.

"Please, have a seat," Harry offered. She smiled and took a seat on a small leather sofa that was pretty comfortable. The most comfortable she had been in weeks honestly.

Harry offered her some tea, a fragrant blend from Earth that frankly she had found calmed her and made her feel more at ease. After he had poured her a cup and prepared it as she requested he handed her the delicate tea cup that had lilies etched across it's width and prepared his own cup. Once he had he sat down in his high backed leather chair and asked, "What can I do for you?"

"I heard about the miracle you performed with the new passengers," Elara said, keeping her eyes on him over her cup.

Harry shook his head, "Nothing miraculous about it. Just a simple application of magical energy with a very focused if vague intent, to heal. I'm not trained in healing, but I know some. Can't spend as much time as I do in a healers realm without picking up a few things."

"Still, you laid hands on the sick and saved them. Combined with the stories you've told of your life so far, and the people are starting to come to their own conclusions," Elara said.

Harry sighed, "I'm not trying to make them think I'm a god."

"I know, and I know you are not arrogant enough o believe yourself one. But you are becoming a beacon to them. A sign of hope. Whether you like it or not," Elara said.

Harry just couldn't accept it, "I can't do this again, Elara. I can't be their Chosen One like I was on Earth. The enemy was so clear before. Hunt down and destroy the Dark Lord. Here I can't be certain of anything. There's just too much going on here for me to get my bearings. I could have stuck back on Caprica, or any of the other Colonies and probably put together a pretty decent sized fleet. But I just couldn't see how to do it without us ending up losing people in pointless fighting."

"So you decided to save what you could and now we have nearly three thousand on this ship, heading for a safe place. Many are saying your one of the Lords of Kobal, come to save Humanity in it's final days," Elara said.

"John and Leoben told me, my nick name being the Lord of Terra. I'm not a god, Elara," Harry said, almost desperate for her to believe him.

Elara sat her cup to the side and knelt in front of Harry, taking his hands in hers and looking in his eyes. She ran a hand across his brown, along the scar that had been a curse for so very long to him. "No, you are not a god. But you have been touched by the Gods. Even beyond that of most Magic-users as you know them. The prophecy you mentioned, but haven't shared the rest of it yet. I can guess that it foretold you facing the Dark Lord you mentioned. But even now, you are meant to face the Darkness, whatever form it takes."

"I hoped I had left that all behind me," Harry said.

"Maybe, but the Gods test us in ways we can never truly understand. And we are all being tested by them in these times," Elara said. She then lifted up enough and kissed Harry softly on his scar.

"You are the one leading us along the path to whatever our future holds. And sometimes that path will become difficult. We will all stumble and fall, it is the way of things. But we can get back up and keep walking that path," Elara said.

Harry took a moment, then smiled softly. He squeezed Elara's hand and said, "Thank you."

–

The _Oceanic Wanderer _was not the last ship they found dead in space. Several systems close to the Helios Cluster had ships in distress. Some they got to in time, some they didn't. Harry had the logs pulled and all evidence stored. Harry didn't know if it would matter, but he wanted to be able to bury Admiral Helena Cain if he ever got the chance.

Clearing the outer systems of survivors increased the population on the Ascension to nearly four-thousand. Every ship they pulled people off of gave similar stories to the rest. Harry ended up near exhaustion many times trying to save people using his Magic. While Harry wasn't a trained healer, he had found over time that he had a very close connection to his Magic. So while he couldn't heal specific wounds too well, he could aide the overall chances of each patient. The doctors accepted all the help they could get.

He also spent his time with the people telling his personal history. About how he had, as a child endured the hellish treatment of his relatives. How he had, over the course of his schooling fought and defeated the Dark Lord when others had failed. He didn't play up these accomplishments, he simply told them how it was. Images of Gilderoy Lockhart forcing him to help the blond ponce reenact the falsehoods in his books keeping him modest. Though there were times that it was impossible not to end up building on his legend. The tale of the Basilisk his second year for instance.

Hearing more and more people start referring to him as "The Lord of Terra" had Harry back with Elara asking a question. "If there were twelve Lords of Kobol, but the planet was were the gods and men lived together, then how did a god turn from just an ordinary god to a Lord?"

"It is not specified, but the Lords of Kobol are recognized as both the leaders of men and of the gods. There are however two other gods that are spoken about within the scrolls," Elara said. She went to pull out the copies of the Sacred Scrolls and opened them to the relevant passages.

"One god is mentioned as the Jealous God, the one who desired to be worshiped and held above all the others. The references to him also include, the one whose name cannot be spoken," Elara said.

Harry bit back a response, that sounded far too close to one of the names Voldemort was referred to by. Elara continued, "However, the Scrolls of Pythia mention the one whose name cannot be spokenas a separate entity. The One is said to have lead the thirteenth tribe on their exodus to Earth, almost two-thousand years earlier."

"It does explain why the Twelve Tribes would go in one direction and the Thirteenth another," Harry mentioned.

Elara nodded, that had been a point of contention between the two as it related to the scrolls. She continued, "The One however is mentioned only as 'the one whose name cannot be spoken' and continues on as that through the Scrolls of Pythia. However, there are points two-thousand years later when the Jealous God is referred to also as, 'the one whose name cannot be spoken.' I cannot say if they are the same god, though I would doubt it."

Harry thought for a moment, "Does it say how 'The Jealous God' was defeated if he was?"

Elara read more, then stopped and looked Harry straight in the eyes, "I'm not certain you will like this part."

Harry just waved for her to continue. She read, "And in the City of the Gods, the Final Battle with the Jealous God was fought. Though he had stood strong before the Twelve Lords of Kobol and their armies, One stood against him. A boy, barely a man, marked by Zeus himself defied the Jealous God. Though he was gifted with the power of the gods, the boy knew he could only stand defiant before the Jealous God's fury. He was tempted with power, a seat at the Jealous God's right hand. The boy renounced the Jealous God however, defying him time and time again. At the Final Battle he had defied the Jealous God six times. The Jealous God struck the boy down, and to all he was as dead. Thinking the final battle over the Jealous God taunted the defenders of the City of the Gods. But he was once again defied by the boy, this time returning from death itself. His sacrifice protecting the defenders from the Jealous God's forces as he faced him one final time. This time however, the boy was victorious, turning the Jealous God's own attack against him," Elara said.

Harry had to take a seat at that, He hadn't told them the story of the Battle of Hogwarts yet, "That sounds far too close to what happened to me for my comfort, Elara."

Elara was thoughtful for a moment. Then she asked, "What do you know of the cycle of time?"

"The closest thing I know is a saying, I can't remember who said it. ' Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.'"

Elara nodded, "The cycle of time holds that time and events circle back upon themselves. That all of this has happened before, and will happen again. It is a central tenant of our faith."

Harry just bowed his head and thought. He finally asked, "Are there any other names that refer to the boy?"

"One, He Who Survived."

It took all of his self-control not to start cursing in English, Caprican Standard, and Parseltounge. He looked up, and with a self-depricating grin said, "At least there aren't anymore prophecies to deal with."

The look on Elara's face did NOT reassure him. She pulled out the Scrolls of Pythia and said, "And a Sheppard will come, with the powers of the Gods but not a God himself. Having faced a great darkness he shall be as lost in the wilderness of the heavens as the people left behind by the Caravan of the Stars. He shall gather as many of the abandoned together as he can, and upon a great bird ascend to the heavens. He shall deliver the abandoned and lost to the Caravan of the Stars. And he shall guide them along the path, forged by the Dying Leader in hopes of returning to his home. And he shall be both the Giver of Life, and the Master of Death."

This time he didn't bother trying to hold back.

To Be Continued...

Author's Notes: Another update. I seem to spend at least a page every chapter answering concerns. I hope I've made it so certain things make more sense. Having Harry being all knowing, even on a ship he designed makes things WAY too easy for him. I hope I gave a valid reason for him not knowing and why he doesn't want Lily spying.

Othala, Thanks. I'll take the hit on that as not being knowledgeable enough.

Darklight, Harry's FTL jump capability was never meant to be as... far reaching as it was. There was some sort of issue he didn't account for during the planned jump to Mars. It's been by going through that information and the information he collected from Caprica that he was able to figure out certain things. Also, regardless of if he could do a direct jump to Earth or not, he's missing vital information in order to plot that jump. He has no idea where the Colonies are in relation to Earth, he has no navigational data to help him plot out jumps much past BSG's Red Line. For all practical purposes _Galactica_ herself could theoretically jump from one side of the galaxy the 100,000 light-year distance to the other. The problem is navigational data and drive efficiency, not distance capability. Theoretically, going off the information available the method of FTL travel seen in BSG has no real limitation on distance traveled. The limitations are in how to plot your course and how efficient your drive is.

The information on the Hyper-Light Jump drives is available on .

Also, Helo is on his own with Cylon Sharron right now, he'd be even more difficult to locate. He's already pushing what he can handle. Space wise he could probably fit Millions on _Ascension_. However, he doesn't have the resources to keep them alive. Food, Life support, all these things are limited right now. Even once his world room and hydroponic Oxygen Gardens start producing edible material it's going to be tight. Saving that many also drains away the whole desperation for the extinction of their civilization angle.

The Matter Replicator hasn't been tested for food yet, just needed things like parts for Vipers and Raptors. Eating entire towns for mass just feels too... I'm not sure if I want to say Borg or Unicron.

As it relates to Colonial belief in the Lords of Kobol, a lot of this is being pulled form the series and . I'm taking some MAJOR liberties in reference to the one whose name cannot be spoken and the Jealous God. There is evidence in the series and on the wiki to suggest they are two separate gods. There's also as much evidence to suggest they are the same god. I'm going to assume for the moment they are different, and try to tie in the prophecy from HP into the Sacred Scrolls somewhat. It seems compelling to me at least, and the aspects of faith in BSG are just as interesting as the Sci-fi and science aspects of the series.


	6. Progression of Purpose

Commander Potter of the Starship _Ascension_

Chapter 6: Progression of Purpose

A Harry Potter/Battlestar Galactica Crossover

By: Legato Deathscythe

_Deep Space_

Time has a way of disappearing if your not careful. Spend long enough just focused on getting by to the next day, next thing you know months have past. Important dates you would remember in the best of times are forgotten. You look at the calender, and you wonder where all the time has past. Harry Potter had times like that in his past. The dark days of the war, on the run, minimal supplies and only two friends to count on.

Now, he was back in the same situation. However this time he could only count on himself and Lily. He trusted Leoben, Rose, Castleman, Elara, and Cavil, however they weren't as close as Ron and Hermione had been. He'd spend hours going over star charts one day, working down in the Garage others. Everyday he would meet with his command crew and go over the matters of the day.

Castleman had gotten his people on a pretty good schedule of training and scouting. A steady CAP was flown for the most part as the Ascension spent most of her time at sub light speeds. Harry had found out what any Engineer in the Colonial Fleet already knew, that you couldn't just keep jumping until you got somewhere. The Apparition drive, though different in design to Colonial Hyper-Light Jump drives still required a cool down period. It also gave some time to potentially lock on to where _Galactica_ might be. They were heading in what they thought was the right direction but couldn't be certain.

Lily spent most of her time trying to cross-reference and rectify Colonial stellar information with available astrometric data from Earth in order to get a better idea of their position. Every Raptor flight dropped a sub-space relay that tied all the information they were getting back to _Ascension_. It was the Harry's hope that this budding network of cloaked sensor platforms would help him map this part of the galaxy. The range on the sensors was only at most a light-year, but the signals sent back and forth along the network allowed them the ability to at least have some idea of where they were. Much like the GPS navigational satellite network back home.

On Chief Tellus' recommendation they had started up an internal security force. Four-thousand people in close quarters was a recipe for unrest. There were some people who had worked ships security on their own ships, as well as the Marines with Castleman's group. They at least allowed them a chance to work out contingency plans just in case something happened.

The doctor's and other medical professionals had been stationed in Sickbay, which had been designed on the fly by Harry, Lily and the doctors since it hadn't been put together before. They made use of _Ascension's _magical origins by creating beds that provided the non-magical doctor's information much like diagnostic charms and other healer based spells. While Harry had a relatively limited store of medical potions for emergency use, he had included everything needed to create a magical garden. He wasn't certain at the time WHY he had everything to brew several years worth of potions and grow ingredients for others but he didn't care. It gave them more usable medicines in case something occurred. Add in the fact that some of the people they had pulled form the ships had been fundamentalist Saggiterons and you had people who didn't like modern medicine now able to be treated. Drugs like the Caprican doctors had were a no no, while apparently magical potions created from natural herbs and other ingredients were acceptable. It also seemed to make them a bit more comfortable with Harry.

One of Harry's projects had him getting multiple Viper Pilots to take a spin in the Thunderbolt. When he had originally designed it he had based piloting on how he flew brooms. So a pilot would instead of being in a seated position would be leaning forward, holding on to two control grips on either side. One of the compliments about the craft was that it could handle sharper turns at higher speeds then the Viper MK-VII. This was in part due to the inertial dampening field generated by runic clusters and enchantments. The Heads-Up-Display also made identifying a target easier as opposed to having to look down at the scanners. Weapons on the Thunderbolt were smaller versions of _Ascension's_ primary energy weapon, but fired off small bursts similar to how the Viper's guns worked. One complaint was that at times it felt like they had to pilot the craft with their whole body, like riding a motorcycle. Though it was a tossup as to whether or not that was a bad thing.

After taking in all this, as well as several suggestions from the pilots he refitted and redesigned the Thunderbolt into what he now called the Raven Mk-I. Having air-to-air and air-to-surface missiles being a feature request, Harry had to start plugging away on a unique weapon that would be usable by the Ravens that he could manufacture on his own. That project was put to the side however as he designed three other small craft. A Raptor analogue he called the Hawk, a planetary explorer he nicknamed a Lander, and a ship to ship transport he called a Runner. While the Raptors were used by the Colonials for all of the above, Harry wanted them to be a little more specialized. So it was setup so Landers could fit four people in the cockpit, with a door that could be sealed off to another area with benches for personnel and equipment to be loaded. Entry for the Lander was from the back, and had a cylindrical look he kind of liked with engine nacelles that extended from the sides. The Runner could hold twelve passengers, was just slightly bigger then a Raptor, and a more rounded appearance the the cylindrical Lander craft.

Once this was done, and he had designed a multi-purpose munition that used a weaponized version of CRPB technology he moved on to projects that matched the original purpose of _Ascension_ to work on. Discovery and exploration for the benefit of all mankind. He had, while unexpected, an extraordinary opportunity here. The sensor packs he deployed in every part of the galaxy they jumped to were able to transmit their positions in relationship to the others. This was providing Harry not only with valuable astronomical data, but with the building blocks of a navigational backbone. He told everyone he was building a GPS network, Galactic Positioning System.

"Makes sense really. We never went very far past our home star system. If we had the capability of faster-than-light communications we could have done something similar, and that would have helped plot jumps with a lot more accuracy," Chief Tellus mentioned when Harry told him.

"Seems the real problem with the FTL drives I developed and that are used in the Colonies or even by the Cylons is really navigational," Harry said.

"We can't really be sure of anything related to the Cylons. Just that they've upgraded their Basestars and Raiders. I wouldn't be surprised if the Centurions had upgraded beyond anything we had seen before either," Castleman offered up as Harry opened the garage door into space and dropped another one of his drones. He pulled out a data-pad and activated the drones systems, to include it's subspace beacon and cloaking systems.

Harry shook his head, "Were any of their systems originally organic?"

Tellus looked confused and then shook his head, "No, just silica pathways and computer chips."

Harry frowned, "When I first jumped into this area I was attacked by Raiders. I was getting readings off my sensors that indicated that they were in fact alive. Almost like some kind of flying crab with a metal space craft shell."

This was news to the other two. Tellus spoke, "I was in the First Cylon War. There were rumors that the Cylons were conducting some human experimentation. But it was all just rumors."

"Well, switching from synthetic chips to organic matter for information processing and transfer has it's advantages I suppose. The average human is said to only use maybe ten percent of total brain capacity at any one time. Of course I could be wrong, I'm not a neurobiologist," Harry mentioned.

"Makes you wonder what else they put a brain in aside from the Raiders," Tellus said.

Harry thought for a moment, "Makes you wonder if they haven't developed a more organic form all around."

Castleman made the leap of logic first, "My Gods, it's the the only way they could have done it."

The other two men looked at him, "Done what?"

"They've managed to develop human forms. It makes sense, infiltrators to put the back door into our networks. All the radio chatter during the fall said that it was like they just threw a switch and shut down entire Battlestars. They must have infiltrated the Ministry of Defense, Scorpion Shipyards, Picon Fleet Command, all our vital areas," Castleman explained.

Harry thought about it, "The new CNP Dr. Baltar developed. Is it possible that a Cylon got to him without him knowing it?"

"From what I know about Gaius Baltar, if the infiltrator was an intelligent and attractive female he would have shown her everything if only so he could get her into bed," Tellus muttered.

Harry thought for a moment, "I wonder how biology would have effected the Cylons."

"What do you mean?" Castleman asked.

"Well, infiltrating Enemy territory isn't unique to Cylons. It's practically the hallmark of espionage no matter the species or planet. And even in war, soldiers are trained to disassociate the people they are killing with themselves. We all do it in war, if only to retain our sanity. What I'm wondering is how would a mind, previously unaffected by things such as hormone levels and biological processes, handle the sudden differences being in a human body would bring?"

"They're machines," Castleman said.

"Maybe, but the difference between a mechanical body and a biological one is that no matter what you do you can't control everything that goes on inside an organic form." Harry said.

"Well, I guess the question now is what do we do? If Castleman is right, then we might have Cylons on board and not even know it," Tellus asked.

Harry took a moment to think it through. He didn't' want to alienate the Cylons if they were on board. Even after everything, after his war against Voldemort, he still held out hope that things like this could be solved peacefully. He didn't give as many chances as Albus had, and forgiveness was hard to come by with Harry.

"For now we act as if nothing is wrong. Even if we think there might be Cylons on this ship, we have no way of determining who they are. It would just cause a panic with the civilians, and that is something we can do with out. Also, we have to admit that all that's been discussed here is conjecture. We have no proof one way or the other. However, I think it might be wise for us to tighten security around vital areas. Lily won't let anyone who isn't meant to get to places they could cause significant damage," Harry said.

"Your computer systems?" Castleman asked.

"Should be alright. My systems are so alien to what you or the Cylons are use to it won't matter. They tried to upload something into the primary data-core when I jumped into Caprica. Lily's been making sure something like that can't affect our systems. And even if by some chance they get the technological systems, the Magical ones are completely different. Only myself and Lily can control them, and that's because no one else on board, even if they are magical, is keyed into the whole system," Harry explained.

"Agreed, though is it possible Lily could scan for Cylons?" Castleman asked.

Harry shook his head, "If they are here they are good. Lily would have notified me if anything strange came up in her scans. Probably means that at least physiologically Cylons are indistinguishable from humans. Any differences are probably at the genetic level, so small it take a much more intrusive scan to see. I MIGHT be able to sense something different between Human and Cylon, but I'd need to be around a Cylon to know the differences in how they feel to normal humans. Even then, my senses and instincts have been so out there since this started I might not."

"Bottom line, we can't know unless we end up finding one of these Human-Cylons," Tellus said.

Harry nodded, and the three men simply kept that in mind and went about their business. Harry couldn't help but feel tired after that discussion. Security seemed to always end up being a major problem for him, one way or the other. At least Death Eaters were marked, you could just check their left forearm and be done with it. He doubted very much he'd find such a mark on a Human-Cylon.

He couldn't even key the magical protections on _Ascension_ to Cylons specifically without a Cylon to know the difference. He had a thought however. He could key the wards to intent. Cylons, even emotionless, would have an intent to harm. It might even help the Security maintain a semblance of order in the populated areas. He was fortunate that _Ascension's_ internal structure was so flexible. No one would be able to get to any section of the ship they weren't meant to be in. That would assist the issues that had been brought up in the recent discussion.

Harry waved his hand along a seemingly random door, which most of the time would lead only to a food storage area. He had really picked the door at random, so no one would ever be able to use it to get to the secret area he was heading for. It was an auxiliary control room, but he had kept it hidden from everyone else. He was still Master and Commander of this ship, and even if things seemed to have settled down he didn't completely trust everyone. As he worked on the wards within that room he thought back to his first few lessons beyond what Hogwarts gave. The lessons that Albus taught him, not about magic, but about himself.

The Mirror of Erised, the Chamber of Secrets, Saving Sirius, Voldemort's rebirth, the Prophecy, through out all those challenges Albus had been there with some pearl of wisdom. If anything, Albus Dumbledore had taught Harry the most important lessons of his life. And for that the barmy old headmaster would forever have Harry's respect. He worked on the internal security wards for a few hours, hoping that it would work and even then wasn't certain as he had no experience with Cylons.

After his work was done he returned to his quarters for some rest. After meditating and connecting with the magic he felt throughout the ship and the universe itself for a time he was restored. During his meditations he couldn't help but remember one of the last conversations he had with Albus before his death.

_Hogwarts School of Wizardry and Witchcraft – Headmaster's office – Sometime in the Spring of 1997_

They had spent most of the evening meeting looking over the pensive memory of Horace Slughorn. The idea of there being seven horcruxes, splitting the soul seven times in order to prevent your own death was just horrific. Harry sat down in front of the desk after they had gone over the destruction of at least two of the horcruxes. Harry shook his head.

"All of this, just to keep from dying," Harry muttered.

Albus nodded, "Some people do not understand that there are worse things then death."

Harry just shook his head, then stood up and paced the office, almost agravated. In the time he had been at Hogwarts he had started up a few personal projects outside of the school, preparing what he wanted for the future. He closed his eyes and looked upward, "It's like everything he does is intended just to gather more power, but has no real purpose to it."

"For some, power is a purpose all its own," Albus said.

Harry just shook his head, "That's just waste is what it is. One of the first things Voldemort ever said to me was there was no good and evil, only power and those too weak to seek it. I'll be honest, I thought about it for a while. Frankly I came to the conclusion that it was just an excuse to justify his behavior."

Albus just nodded, letting Harry keep going. Harry turned and looked at Albus, "Do we as wizards and witches and magic users have power? Yes. Do we have more abilities then the average muggle? Yes. Does this make us superior to the muggles? Depends on how you ask the question I suppose. Culturally, I'd say no. One on one, maybe if you're talking individuals. Academically and philosophically, I'd say that it doesn't matter as those are really products of the mind and not of any real ability outside ones capability to think differently."

"This is true," Albus responded.

"I'll be honest, I'm not convinced that the Statute of Secrecy is a good thing. I'm not certain that hiding was ever the right thing to do. When I asked Hagrid when I first met him why we hid he said that Muggles would expect magical solutions to their problems, and it was best we were left alone. I'm not convinced, if anything I think we have an obligation. Nothing I've read says things like potions won't work for Muggles. Nothing I've seen says magical healing can't work for all humans. Nothing I've seen says we can't mesh both magic and science," Harry ranted.

"In all the old stories on the muggle side of things, wizards like Merlin were guides. The good ones never dominated, they guided leaders of men towards just cause. Yes, he did great things with magic by staff and deed, but his greatest contributions were magic of the mind and soul, and I'm not talking dark magic like what Voldemort did. The magic of the human heart."

Albus sat back for a moment and thought back to conversations from his own youth with someone else. He then asked Harry, "What would you do, if you could change the world as you saw fit?"

Harry thought for a moment, seriously thought about it. He answered, "We reveal ourselves to the rest of the world, once we do we don't dominate, we don't act as if our magic gives us authority. We share this planet with over six billion other people, magical and non-magical. We can help, we can make life better for all people. The problem is though, no matter how noble the thought we've got too many people who can't see past their own hate. And I mean this on both sides of the line. Voldemort and his Death Eaters have proven that.

"We'd have to have a reason, to bring all of us together in common purpose. Power without purpose is waste. And even then, without a common purpose we'd end up with people fighting each other, hating because we're different, one way or the other. No matter what, we're still human every one of us. So we're scared of what we don't understand, think we're superior to others cause we've got more money, more power, more whatever. If I could change the world I'd have to make sure everyone would be protected by law, no matter what. The muggles have laws against such discrimination, we're behind them on that."

Harry went and looked out the window behind Albus desk, the old professor watching his student closely. Harry looked out and said, "And lets face it, the majority of our population is at most just civilians like the Weasley's. It be up to them and the other every day magic users to make nice with their non-magical counter parts."

"You're forgetting the muggle-born," Albus said.

"True, and I'm practically muggle-born as it is. But the integration of both would lead to who knows what kind of advancements of our people. We don't have to rule, we don't NEED to rule. Hell if history is any idication we SHOULDN'T rule. We do like Merlin did so many centuries ago. We make the suggestions, but in the end, it's up to the people to do what's right, not what's easy."

Albus just couldn't hold it back anymore. He started chuckling amusedly at Harry's words. Harry turned to his mentor, an eyebrow raised in confusion. Albus calmed down enough to say, "I've heard something similar before my boy. Almost one hundred years ago, when I was barely older then yourself. Felt like I was wasting my potential at the time. It was then I met a much younger Gellert Grindelwald. This was long long before he turned to darkness. We used to talk about how the world was progressing, certain that everything was going wrong. The arrogance of youth is that you always feel like you can do things better then they have always been. It was also the turn of the century, and to us it seemed as if the muggles were going to destroy the very world we lived on in their unstoppable march of progress. We felt, much like you do, that magic users should take a greater role on the world stage. But where you feel that we should work together with the muggles and try to work towards a common goal, Gellert and I felt Wizards were meant to rule. We simply disagreed on the position we would take. I felt that we should rule from the shadows, a puppet government if you will enacting our will. He however, felt that Wizards should dominate the world, force the muggles to bow before us."

Harry listened closely, shocked. Albus Dumbledore had been friends with the same Dark Lord he would later defeat in single combat? And they felt the same way about the world at one point? "What changed?"

Albus hesitated for a moment, "We had a fight, one which cost me something extremely precious. It was at that point I knew I could not be trusted with power. So I dedicated my life to Hogwarts, to educating children instead of pursuing the purpose I THOUGHT I was meant for.

"But you, you see things the way I did but unlike either myself, Gellert, or even Voldemort you see both sides of the problem. Where we felt that magic users should rule in one form or another you feel we should simply co-exist. Where we would have limited the muggles, you would work with them to see a new age for all mankind. Where we placed all the blame on muggles, you hold both sides accountable. I don't know if you will ever be able to pull off this dream of yours, but I do hope you follow it."

Harry smiled lightly, "It's not enough to live, you have to have something to live for."

Albus nodded, and Harry smiled.

–

An explosion rocking the ship ripped Harry away from his memories.

Authors Notes: Sorry this took longer then the other updates. It took me a while to get it the way I wanted. I'm also in the middle of a complete redesign and rebuild of my website and it's taking a lot of my time right now. I'm trying my best to speed things up on the rebuild of Darkscribes(dot)org but it's going to take time to get back to where we were. Thankfully it's going to be done at some point. Do me a favor and check out the rebuild, look around, let me know what you think about what we've done. And while you are at it how about checking out some of my older fanfics and helping me get a bit of a head of steam built on them as well. :)


	7. Welcome to the War

Commander Potter of the Starship _Ascension_

Chapter 7: Welcome to the War

A Harry Potter/Battlestar Galactica Crossover

By: Legato Deathscythe

"Lily, report!"

Harry had ran straight out of his quarters and was trying to make his way towards the bridge. Several more explosions rocked _Ascension, _throwing Harry against the bulkheads. Lily appeared next to him, looking completely unaffected by the sudden shift in the deck. The look on her face however was one of pain and shock. The damage must have been extensive to be affecting her like this.

"Multiple explosions all over the ship, mostly non-critical systems. Hull integrity is holding, and we haven't lost main life-support. However, with the amount of damage to the non-critical areas we've lost primary FTL and sub-light. We're on emergency propulsion enchantments. Main sensors are online and fire suppression wards have activated," Lily said.

Harry was thrown hard to the deck as another explosion, much stronger then the last ran through the ship. Harry pushed himself off the floor and said, "What was that?"

"Massive explosion on the Bridge. Ten people were on duty in there," Lily reported. Harry quickly made his way to the bridge quickly. Usually he'd simply have Lily re-link a corridor or hatch to get there, but that was just too dangerous at the moment.

"What about the Automatic repair charms?"

"Already active."

Several people raced around Harry trying to get help where it needed to be. Harry pulled a headset out of his pocket and pushed it into his right ear. He had been meaning to hand some off in order to keep in contact, but he hadn't had time just yet. Lily disappeared but her voice was still filtered through the headset.

"We're getting casualty reports from all over the ship. Sickbay is almost completely full now," Lily reported.

Harry nodded as he bent down and checked someone laying on the deck, he checked for a pulse and found none, it was when he took a closer look he saw who it was. John was on the deck dead. Harry closed his eyes and gave him a moment of silence. He got back on his feet and kept trying to get to the bridge. He noticed the carbon scoring on the bulkhead nearby. John must have been passing here when it went off.

Harry tapped the headset as he went and said, "Castleman, report."

"We're trying to help the medical crew get all the wounded treated. I've got all my people down here trying to maintain some control over the situation," Castleman reported.

"Where are you?"

"World room, we had at least five major explosions in here. All of them in crowded areas, including the temple," Castleman answered.

Harry closed his eyes and stopped shortly. Elara was a priestess, a woman of peace, she wouldn't have ever hurt anyone. He bottled that up and would deal with it later, there was no confirmation that she was dead, but he had a feeling she had passed beyond the veil. He thought for a moment and then said, "I want you to scramble all vipers. I want them out there and in the air right now."

"Are we under attack?"

"No, but I've got a bad feeling about this. We've lost FTL and primary sub-light propulsion. Even with the backup flying enchantments we're pretty much a sitting duck," Harry said.

"Understood," was all Castleman said before disconnecting.

Harry got to the bridge and threw his hands in front of his face as fire lashed out at him. He could see several bodies on the deck, some draped over a rail or two. Harry could hear some of them moaning in pain. Some of them were still alive. Harry could hear some of the crew come racing down the corridor. A quick glance behind him was enough to see it was medics and other volunteers.

Without a second glance he pulled out his wand and cast a flame freezing charm on himself. The lead medic saw him and yelled out for him not to go in there. He didn't listen. The medics were shocked when the fire seemed to leave him untouched. Harry started casting flame suppression charms all along the path he walked. The medics were able to start moving onto the bridge and start checking the injured. Harry walked to the helm and navigation consoles and found Rose laying face down on the deck. A check of her pulse showed that she too had passed.

Harry started levitating debris off of the injured, and did what he could to respect the dead. Harry sighed as he noticed the scorch marks on the deck, near the helm controls where Rose would have been seated, same as John and that bulkhead. Once was chance, twice coincidence that was all it was at the moment. Still, it was strange but Harry filed it away for later. Right now he was checking one of the last casualties of the explosion. Harry shook his head and nodded to the medics who took the body away. Harry immediately started trying to pull together as much information and control over the ship as he could.

"Lily, do we still have sensors?"

"Short-range only. Long-range sensors are offline. I've been able to get sub-light back to fifty percent."

"Keep an eye on those sensors. We don't want to be caught with our pants down. Focus on propulsion and navigation as it relates to repairs, we need to be able to get out of here as soon as possible. Are there any habitable planets in the local area?"

"None that I'd recommend. Hull integrity should hold until repairs are completed. I've also got the atmospheric containment fields on standby," Lily reported. The Atmospheric Containment field was really a modified bubble-head charm that Harry had had designed for large areas and space travel. Just in case.

Leoben ran onto the bridge at the point as consoles and control panels slowly regenerated. Harry nodded to him as he raced from console to console trying to identify what happened. Leoben slid up beside him and said, "It looks like someone might have broken into one of the armory storage units. Seven detonators and a couple pounds of high explosive are missing."

"We have either a traitor or a spy on board," Harry said, his face setting into a hard line.

Leoben looked at Harry, worried at this shift in behavior. Before he could say anything an alarm sounded from the short-range sensors. The radio burst from the combat air patrol said it all.

"Incoming Cylon raiders bearing 314 karum 229!"

–

"Who told you to set those explosives?" Cavil shouted as he dried the fluid from the resurrection tub from his hair. He was pissed, mostly because three, four, and five had acted unilaterally. He was sort of pissed that he had taken an explosion to the face. Blast waves hurt.

"We managed to get a fix on their location. We got a signal through to the basestar that was undetected. This was the perfect time to strike," Three pushed.

"It was logical to strike them with the opportunity that presented itself. If they reach the Galactica fleet they will be harder to strike," Five said in a dull voice.

"We cannot allow a ship as powerful as _Ascension_ to fall into Colonial hands," Four offered.

The red hair of Rose practically flashed past Cavil as she grabbed five by his collar and pushed him against the wall. She snarled, "Did you have to put the bomb under my seat?"

"Were you in on this Six?" Cavil asked?

"No, it was a shock when I got a pressure wave where the sun doesn't shine," Six snarled, then slammed her knee into Five's crotch.

Cavil winced, he at least got it in the face. He shook his head and said, "Since you three decided to make a preemptive strike, we will take the opportunity and strike now. _Ascension_ is crippled, a better opportunity will not present itself in the near future. Either we'll eliminate a threat, or have a better understanding of how Potter reacts."

"I don't see two, he must still be over there," Six noticed.

"At least for now we'll still have someone on board, if Potter somehow survives," Cavil mentioned.

The group moved into the basestar's control room and gave the order to jump.

–

"Castleman! I need you on the bridge ASAP!" Harry yelled over the comm system.

Harry raced over to the Command Chair and sat down in it. As he did he ordered, "Lily, activate all available weapons systems. Charge the main cannons and set all rail guns to auto fire. Reroute all repair charms to propulsion, we need to get that Jump Drive back online. Leoben, bring us about. If we can't run we'll face them until we can make a run for it. Lily, open a channel to the vipers.

"All Vipers, this is Commander Potter. Do not fire unless fired upon. Repeat, do not fire unless fired upon first."

Leoben had rushed to the helm and was carrying out Harry's orders. He was in the dark but he could figure out what happened. Some of the others had decided to act without a consensus. His best option was to continue on at this moment as if nothing was different. Also, he could watch Potter and have more to report if and when he was resurrected with the others.

Harry stood from the Command Chair as Castleman arrived. Harry looked at the approaching fleet as two basestar's jumped right in front of them. Harry could hear the major cursing under his breath. After a moment of thought Harry ordered, "Lily, hail them, all frequencies and translations."

"What are you doing?" Castleman asked.

"Testing them," was all Harry said.

"Cylon basestars, this is Commander Harry Potter of the Terran Starship _Ascension. _Currently, there is no state of hostilities between the Terran people and the Cylon Collective. That can change very quickly. Right now this ship is engaged in humanitarian operations. I've heard a lot about you and yours. That you are all just malfunctioning machines. And a machine cannot go against it's programming. I'd like to believe that you are more then that, that you are capable of more complex thought then just logic and coded responses.

"Do not mistake this as weakness on our part. If you open fire I will unleash every weapons system I have available and destroy your ships. We will defend ourselves and the civilians under our protection. However, we will not fire unless fired upon. Understand though that if there should be war today, it will be on your own heads." Harry made a cutting motion with his hand to his neck to end the transmission.

Castleman slid up to his side and said in a low voice, "Diplomacy with Cylons?"

Harry shot him a sideways glance, "Let's be honest with ourselves. We're severally crippled and we don't even know how well Ascension will stand up against one basestar let alone two. I only managed to survive the first encounter by luck. No, we give them the first shot, buy ourselves some time to get FTL back online."

Castleman shook his head, "You are acting as if you are dealing with a human commander over there. Cylons don't do diplomacy, even when it is offered or attempted."

"Maybe, but we don't have a choice. And giving them the choice might force them to consider things first. Even if it's a few seconds, it works in our favor. I'm not going to start a fight, but I will damned sure finish it." There was nothing anyone could say to that. They all knew his priority was keeping them all alive, even if it meant running.

On board the lead basestar, the Cylons recently of Ascension were debating their next course of action.

"He's bluffing," Three said,

"He can't possibly survive against two basestars and full compliments of raiders. He's buying time to repair his ship," Five said.

Cavil shook his head, "We don't know that. We have no idea what kind of weapons he has on that ship. Have you looked at the Dradis readings? We can't even get a target lock because of that energy shield of his."

"He doesn't know that. He is just as blind to us as we are to him. We have superior firepower, regardless of the type of weapons," Four said.

"No, this is more then that. He's testing us, trying to see what we'll do if the flag or truce is offered," Six stated.

"We can't know that. He could just as easily turn on us once he reaches the Colonials," an Eight offered back.

"Humans can't be trusted, no matter where they are from," Five said.

Six just shook her head, "He's not going to open fire until we do. After that he will only be our enemy because we made him."

"This isn't just a test by Potter. God is testing us, our resolve to carry out his will," A random two said.

"We vote," Cavil said. For a few moments the Cylons connected with their breathern and came to a consensus.

Three turned to another control and placed her hand in the data-stream.

–

"They are trying to hack our systems!" Lily reported. Harry shook his head in disappointment. He turned to Lily and saw her face set in deep concentration. Harry ran over to his command chair and turned to Castleman.

"I was hoping to buy a bit more time with that. Castleman, take tactical and coordinate the Vipers and Fire systems. Leo, evasive maneuvers, keep the main canons lined up with the lead basestar," Harry ordered.

The scene on the view screen glided as _Ascension_ turned into the battle. The chemical exhaust of several warheads was already visible on a trajectory towards them. The streaks of railgun and particle beam fire soon joined the sight as Castleman fired the guns to intercept. Vipers and Raiders could be seen exploding as their fuel ignited and were shot down. Harry brought up the display and assessed the battle space.

He turned to Lily and asked, "How many Ravens have we been able to build?"

"We have one full squadron, however we have no pilots capable of flying them," Lily reported.

Harry thought for a moment and check the status of the Jump Drive repairs. With all the energy refocused on to those areas for the repair charms the system was back to eighty percent. It would have to do for the time being. They could make a short jump away from the battlefield, but that would assume the fighters had a chance to get back. He checked his calculations and turned to Castleman. "Launch the new warheads I developed. Good time to see if they were worth the material."

From outside it appeared as if a swarm of fireflies had just flown out of the ships launch tubes. The weapon Harry had developed was based on the idea of an exploding hex combined with a magical core overload. They flew faster then the missiles the Colonials and Cylons preferred. The small explosions as the raiders were thinned out proved their effectiveness against smaller craft, however due to the Raiders and interceptor fire only a fraction of the weapons launched actually struck one of the basestars. It wasn't enough to destroy it, but they could see parts of the hull exposed to space. Harry shook his head, that had not worked as he had hoped, but the fighter screen coupled with the Cylon's firing solution was effective.

Harry turned to Castleman and asked, "Any suggestions?"

Castleman had been trained in this theater of combat. Harry was more then willing to admit that when it came to this sort of thing he was out of his depth. He could handle ground tactics and fighting wand to wand. He was not however versed in navel combat, on the water or in space. All he had was years of intuition and luck on his side. Harry waited for a moment as Castleman arranged the fighters. FTL was online, shields were holding for the moment, nothing major had gotten through just yet.

"RADIOLOGICAL ALARM!" Castleman called out. A pair of Raiders had launched a total of six nuclear war heads at them. The vipers had managed to get two of them, but the rest were inbound. Interceptor fire cleared out another three, leaving one that seemed to not want to go down.

Harry hit a control on his chair to connect him to the rest of the ship, "All hands brace for impact!" A moment later _Ascension_ rocked hard from the force of the explosion. Across the ships fires broke out as circuits over loaded and relays failed.

"LILY!"

"Shields are at sixty percent. Most of the hard radiation was blocked however some got through, it's being absorbed by the hull plating. Structural integrity is compromised on deck twenty-one section ten, eleven, and twelve!"

"Evacuate that area and seal it off. Do we still have jump capability?" Harry asked.

"The Jump Drive is barely holding on as it is, if we are going to run we need to do it now!"

After thinking for a moment Harry turned to Castleman, "I'm ordering a launch on all Ravens. Lily, tie their guidance and weapons control systems into primary control. Major, order the Vipers to prepare for immediate landing. We've got one chance at this, if this doesn't work we're screwed."

"What are you going to do?" Castleman demanded. He didn't like the idea of sending out a flight of fighters with no pilots, it seemed to easy for the Cylons to take them over.

"It's time I show them the error of their decision," Harry said and sat in the Command Chair. Castleman watched as the chair leaned back, bright light from above illuminating it, almost casting the rest of the bridge in shadow. Castleman noticed on his tactical screen that all the Raven immediately assumed formation and broke to attack the Raiders. The Viper Pilots were shocked at the skill of the unmanned craft that started clearing out their enemies.

"I've lost helm control," Leoben reported.

"Because I have it now," Harry quietly responded. Leoben watched him closely as _Ascension_ suddenly jumped.

It's came out of the jump only 50 kilometers above one of the basestars. The energy canons opened fire, burning through the heavy armor and metal and igniting the internal atmosphere of the command ship. The basestar exploded in a massive fireball as it's reactors were breached. _Ascension_ was for a moment lost in the fireball, only to fly out the other side of the now dissipating explosion.

While this was happening, another aspect of Harry's mind was attacking the remaining basestars data network. He broke in and copied their star charts, technical data, information on their cyber attack tactics, and intelligence on the location of the _Galactica._

The Cylons that had made the decision to attack were still in their CIC, watching as Potter's forces seemed to suddenly decimate their ships. Suddenly, the three that had started the attack screamed and grabbed her head, falling to the floor.

The disembodied voice of Harry Potter came through the ship, "I gave you a chance, I gave you a choice. We could have been friends, and if the possibility exists in the future we may still be able to come to an accord. You however decided to attack me and those under my protection. You would murder innocents, commit genocide against an entire race. I warned you, you did this."

Screams of panic filled the ship as Centurions turned on the human form Cylons and themselves. The hybrid screamed as systems were stripped of her control, FTL drives overloaded and became useless scrap. Cavil tried to maintain control, to order an immediate retreat.

Before the atmosphere of the bridge was lost he heard a final message, "I am the Master of Death, destroyer of worlds. Welcome to my war."

It was the last thing Cavil would hear before he resurrected again.

–

"Recall all fighters!" Harry suddenly ordered. Castleman was knocked out of his stupor and gave the order, authorizing combat landings for all Vipers as the Ravens stuck it out and kept the raiders at bay. Once the last viper was aboard the bay sealed and the Raven all turned and flew towards the final basestar. The Raiders tried to stop them but were unable to prevent the kamikaze run that would destroy the second of their basestars. _Ascension_ turned and started to move quickly away from the battle zone. Before the Raiders could do anything, the strange vessel disappeared in a blink of light.

To Be Continued

Authors Notes: Sorry for taking so long. Been fretting over this space battle and frankly even looking at it I'm not entirely convinced I did well this first time through. I don't know. I'm going to be a while on the next chapter as I try to figure out a few things. I'm debating on the best point to connect with the fleet, and while there are some MAJOR points that might be good, the one I'm really liking if Colonial Day and the first meeting of the Quorum since the attack on the Colonies. I'll think on it more.

If you are wondering what may have taken my attention from this fic I would have to say it's the rebuild of my website. The link is on my homepage link on my profile. I'm trying to rebuild it using Drupal as a base, but it's slow going in some cases, and no go in others. I'm hoping for more people to come and revitilize the site community and set the new tone. If anyone knows php and is willing to help out let me know, as the faster I get my site back online the sooner I can dedicate my free time to writing these stories.


	8. Aftermath

Commander Potter of the Starship _Ascension_

Chapter 8: Aftermath

A Harry Potter/Battlestar Galactica Crossover

By: Legato Deathscythe

_Ascension_ blinked into existence sitting docilely hanging in the black. To an observer the explosion of part of the ship becoming exposed to space was apparent. All of the ship systems were shorting out, fires starting in areas on multiple decks. In some rooms the expansion charms failed, causing the room to collapse and compress all the matter in it into the original space. Fortunately the World Room was still stable as was Sickbay. Harry raced around the bridge as Castleman and Leoben were reporting.

Lily gave a full analysis as she could, "We've lost atmosphere on decks twenty-one through twenty-five from section thirty-two on. Main power is offline and we have fires all over the ship!"

"Activate fire suppression wards! Seal off the affected decks and divert all repair energy to the hull breach. Activate all emergency enchantments through out the ship," Harry ordered.

As Lily complied Castleman reported, "We lost the entire squadron of Ravens. Five Vipers are KIA. Total casualties so far are one thousand two hundred thirty two wounded, ten dead but that number is probably going to go up."

"I've got no navigational control, and no idea what is out there right now," Leoben reported from the helm.

Harry turned to Castleman, "Get a CAP up ASAP. I want at least two raptors out there providing over watch."

Castleman nodded in acknowledgment and sent the orders. Harry called down to Chief Tellus, "How are things down there Chief?"

"Pretty bad, I need you down here Harry. We've got Gods know how many friend control crystals. Some of them shattered in their ports, I don't know how we're going to fix any of this."

"I'll be down as soon as I can, Chief. Doc, what's your status?"

The Chief Medical Officer, a Dr. Caplan responded, "We've got mostly shrapnel and concussions down here. Several cases of severe burns, broken bones, the works. We're using some of those magic potions you have in stock down here but it's going to be rough for a while."

"Do what you can Doc, I'll try my best to get down to you guys first." Harry said.

Harry pulled up a hologram of the ship, damaged areas and critical problems lighting up in red. The ship was practically covered in red lights. He focused all his attention to repairing and reassessing the damage and patching what he could. Fortunately, there wasn't anything so far that looked irreparable.

He was just about to leave the bridge and head down to help the medics when one of the Raptors reported in, "This is Raptor 2, I have multiple contacts barring 187 karum 320 CBDR."

"Damn it, that was fast," Harry yelled as he started trying to reroute power and bring some kind of defensive system online.

"Lily, bring it up on screen," Harry ordered. The contact was still pretty far out. "Magnify."

It was a group of ships, all of various configurations. Castleman though noticed something at the center of the fleet and immediately rushed over, "Lily, focus on the center ship and enhance the image along the port side!"

Lily did as ordered and the view changed. Once she had the word _"Galactica" _came into focus on the screen. There was a deep sense of relief among everyone on the bridge. Harry immediately ordered all fighters to return to the landing bays and begin assisting in recovery operations. A CAP was posted and the Raptors remained out to keep watch. Harry turned to Lily and asked, "Can we contact them?"

Lily nodded, Colonial radio transmissions having long ago been programmed into the COMMS system. Harry turned to the screen, the fleet getting closer to them and what looked like a Raptor and two Vipers heading in their direction. Harry turned to Lily and said, "Send to Galactica. _'This is the Terran Starship Ascension. Have been attacked by Cylon Basestars and are currently repairing our systems. Am carrying approximately four thousand Colonial military and civilian personnel. Request assistance.'_"

Castleman looked at him and said, "They'll think this is a Cylon trap. I know I would."

"Can't say I disagree with you. All we can do is stay where we are anyways until repairs are completed. It's not like we're actually a threat to them at the moment," Harry said, trying to stay in the mindset of paranoia that was needed for their survival. It was completely possible that fleet would jump away, leaving them to fend for themselves. They were far enough out to do so without any danger coming to the civilian ships.

"What do we do if they identify anyone as a Cylon on board?" Castleman asked. He was for all intents and purposes Harry's XO, and had to ask the question.

Harry gave Castleman a look and said, "I don't know how the Colonial military handles that sort of thing, but Earth has some pretty specific laws regarding the treatment of Prisoners of War. As this is a Terran ship, we will follow those guidelines. They identify a Cylon, we'll keep him under guard and isolated to quarters, but we won't do anything else. I'm not about to start flushing prisoners out the airlock. Not to mention the fact that Magical Law in Britain would classify Cylons as Non-Human Sentiants of close or equal to human intelligence and by law have the same rights and protections as any other citizen. I should know, I wrote that law."

"They are just machines," Castleman said.

"Maybe, but Earth law doesn't take that into account, and Magical Law provides for all sentients regardless of species. Besides, why would I want to get rid of a potential resource that could give me more insight into the situation? Considering what I know about the Cylons from your first war, it's logical to conclude that they have upgraded and evolved. Even during the first war they were a sentient group. It would be a mistake Major to assume that just because they are mechanical in origin that they only think in a mechanical fashion," Harry said.

"You still think that if they had human form infiltrators they would think similar to us?"

"Well, biology does play it's part."

Leoben hadn't been privy to the conversation before the attack, but he had to assume for the moment his cover was about to be blown. Thing was he wasn't certain what the best option was at this point. He left the bridge in order to help the wounded in the World room, the need for him to stay at navigation not as great in Harry's view. As he passed on of the halls he thought about what he knew would be a coming confrontation between him and the Earth Wizard. He wasn't certain how he wanted that to turn out.

–

"_Action Stations! Actions Stations! Set Condition One throughout the ship!"_ the voice of Lieutenant Felix Gaeta echoed over the ship-wide speakers. The crew moved with the precision and speed constant battle and training had ingrained in them. Vipers were fueled and ready for launch, emergency jump coordinates transmitted throughout the fleet, weapons primed and on standby, ready to open fire on any threat to the remnant of Humanity that was the Colonial Fleet.

"Just our frakkin' luck this would happen when we've got all those bureaucrats heading to the most vulnerable ship in the fleet," Colonel Saul Tigh gripped as he stood next to Commander William Adama. Both hardened veterans kept their eyes on the DRADIS screen, trying to determine what kind of threat was once again in their path.

"Contact is stationary, bearing 320 Karum 187... They've launched fighters," Gaeta reported.

"Cylons?" Tigh asked.

"Contact is too small to be a Cylon Basestar, but it's bigger then one of their Raiders or Heavy Raiders."

The communications officer, Duealla spoke up at that moment, "Sir, we're receiving a transmission for the contact. '_This is the Terran Starship Ascension. Have been attacked by Cylon Basestars and are currently repairing our systems. Am carrying approximately four thousand Colonial military and civilian personnel. Request assistance.'_"

"Has to be a Cylon trick, I've never heard of Terrans or whatever before," Tigh said.

Adama hummed for a moment in thought, "Who do we have out there right now?"

"Cat, Hotdog, and Boomer are on CAP sir," Dualla reported.

"Patch me through to Boomer," Adama requested. "Boomer, _Galactica_. What do you see?"

"_Galactica_, Boomer. I'm seeing a lot of small fighters flying around this thing, but they are landing. The contact is about a third the length of _Galactica_ it's width is almost equal along the wings. It almost resembles a hawk. Wait, I'm spotting Colonial Vipers and Raptors patrolling the area around the ship."

Adama turned to Dualla and said, "Transmit in the clear: _'Ascension, have received your transmission and are moving to intercept. Will send medical and security personnel. Do you require anything else?_"

Tigh looked at his friend and Commander across the CiC and asked, "You sure about this?"

"No, but four thousand survivors isn't something we can just ignore," Adama admitted.

"It's smaller the we are, there's just no way to fit that many people on a ship that size," Tigh pointed out.

"Maybe, but that's why we're sending a couple of Raptors in with just Marines."

Adama turned to Dualla and said, "Contact _Colonial-1_, bring the President up to date on the situation. And recall Apollo and Starbuck from _Cloud-9 _for possible First Contact."

As orders were followed Dualla called out, "Sir, the President is asking to speak with you."

Adama picked up the handset on the DRADIS console and nodded for the call to be patched through. "Madam President."

"Commander, I just wanted to be clear. The transmission identified that ship as a Terran starship?" President Roslin asked.

"Yes Madam President, that is what the transmission said."

"Commander, do you know any Ancient Kobolian?"

"No, I never studied it," Adama admitted.

"I was speaking with Elosha when your transmission came through. According to her the word _Terra _ was used in Ancient Kobolian texts, most notibly the Scrolls of Pythia which are supposed to document the Thirteenth Tribes journey from Kobol to Earth, Earth being translated from the word Terra," Roslin informed the Commander.

Adama looked directly at Tigh, years of serving together letting the Colonel know something was up. Adama spoke into the handset, "It almost sounds like you are telling me that this ship might be from Earth."

It had been a secret agreement between the two to keep the fiction that Earth existed alive in order to bring hope to the fleet. Adama had been right, that it wasn't enough to live and that the people needed something to live for. But neither Commander Adama or President Roslin at the time even considered the possibility it was true.

"For now I think we should keep an open mind," Roslin said over the line.

"If they do claim to be from Earth, it could cause chaos throughout the fleet," Adama mentioned.

"Last thing I need right now, the Quorum delegates meeting on Cloud-9 and Zarack now we've got a potential first contact with someone from Earth."

"Right now this is all conjecture. We need to focus on what we know for certain. He's claiming he's got four thousand people on his ship. _Galactica_ is at least three times the length of this _Ascension, _and our optimal crew compliment is about thirty-five hundred with enough room for a few more. We know that ship has Colonial military craft in the form of Vipers and Raptors. We also know that it doesn't match anything in the Colonial database so far, but the design is close to Cylon."

"I see, keep me apprised." The connection ended and Adama went back to work.

–

Boomer and Crashdown had been joined by several Raptors and Vipers to provide medical assistance to the _Ascension. _Boomer had been given nominal authority to land and make contact, and had been given landing clearance to the ships port landing bay. It was as she came in for landing she noticed something.

"Crashdown, take a look," she called to the back.

"What's up?"

"Is it just me, or are their people working in the landing bay right now?"

The ECO looked out the canopy and saw several work crews outside the landing zone working to move damaged Vipers and get pilots out of their fighters. Just as they entered the bay Crashdown gave out a shocked, "Whoa! Something just glitched the DRADIS for a second. Wait a minute. Boomer, check your readings up there?"

Boomer had to look twice as she brought the Raptor in for landing. She could hardly believe what she was seeing, "I'm detecting an atmosphere. Oxygen, nitrogen, trace elements, pressure, how is this possible?"

"I have no frakkin' idea, Boomer."

As the Raptors started landing on the deck and being towed to parking areas Boomer exited and was approached by what looked like a Captain she didn't know. As they approached he started ordering his people to assist the offload of medics to where they would do the most good. Boomer and Crashdown popped a salute, "Lt. Sharron Valerie Battlestar Galactica."

"Captain Marcus Devon, _Ascension_ CAG. Things are pretty crazy around here right now, we've still got fires all over the ship. Several of the compartments have collapsed in on themselves. I'll get you to the Triage area, we've got a lot of wounded to care for," Captain Devon informed her. The Ship suddenly rocked as another area decompressed.

All of the sudden a voice came over the ships COMMS system, _"All Hands, this is the Commander. Make immediate preparation to abandon ship! All Air Crews launch immediately, all able bodied people get to Crew quarters and prepare for separation. All personnel in world room to proceed to Crew Quarters, Sick Bay, and launch bays! Repeat, ALL HANDS ABANDON SHIP!"_

Everything went straight to Hell after that.

–

Harry had been going through all the systems. Power had been spiking over the entire ship, and nothing he did from the bridge seemed to isolate the problem. Harry opened a line to the Drive room and said, "Chief, I want you to start pulling all the control crystals for the Jump Drive. Disconnect the hard line connections to the power grid and disengage the capacitors from the system."

"On it, we're still trying to pry out crystal shards from all the ports."

"Understood, just get it done as fast as you can or we could lose the whole ship," Harry said over the comm and disconnected.

Lily was standing nearby, systems enchantments all open to her consciousness. As she stood there she attempted to remotely bypass and reroute power away from damaged areas. She tried to reroute a surge in the weapons systems but couldn't access the emergency cutoffs, "Surge in Weapons systems, starboard side particle beam turret number three. Unable to bypass or disengage."

A second later the ship was rocked as the turret exploded and opened up another hull breach along the starboard wing. Secondary explosions and decompressions delivered even more damage to the vessel. In an instant Lily reported, "Sir, I have a massive build up of energy in one of the primary energy capacitor systems. It's reaching critical and an explosion would breach the Battery room. An explosion like that would breach the Battery room and cause a ship wide implosion of all areas."

Harry cursed and he looked the status over, "How much time do we have before it goes?"

"Less then ten minutes."

Castleman turned and looked at Harry, "We can't evacuate everyone in ten minutes."

Harry looked him hard in the eye, "Then we try to save who we can, as many as we can while we try to stop this."

He opened a COMM line to the entire ship and said, "All Hands, this is the Commander. Make immediate preparation to abandon ship! All Air Crews launch immediately, all able bodied people get to Crew quarters and prepare for separation. All personnel in world room to proceed to Crew Quarters, Sick Bay, and launch bays! Repeat, ALL HANDS ABANDON SHIP!"

Harry turned and headed to leave the bridge, "Potter, where are you headed?"

"Major, you are in command. I built this ship, I know her inside and out. I'll try to stop the overload or at least buy you some more time to get every one off."

Major Castleman shook his head for a moment and then said, "You are the Commander, you should be one of the first to evacuate out of here."

Harry stopped and then turned to the Major, "You're the Commander now. If it comes down to it, I'll go down with my ship."

No one stopped Harry as he ran through the corridors, using every method he had to get to the affected area. As he ran he almost slammed right into Leoben as the other man was racing back in the other direction, "Did I just hear right? We're going to abandon ship?"

Harry just shook his head, "There is no we in this Leo, I'm going to do my damnedest to give you all time to get to minimum safe distance and save the ship."

"Are you crazy? You have less then ten minutes to do this."

"Maybe, but it's not a failure if it saves even one more person."

Harry kept on his trek towards the problem area, Leoben fell into step and hussled to keep up right beside him, "You're gonna need some help then."

–

Castleman Was heading the evacuation, trying to get as many people off the ship as possible. He just gave the go ahead for another of Potter's newly created shuttles to take off with a full load when Boomer found him.

"Sir, Commander Adama needs to speak with you."

Castleman nodded and turned to Captain Devon, "Once the next shuttle is full launch immediately and make for the fleet."

Castleman tapped the COMM in his ear and ordered Lily to patch him through, "_Ascension Actual_ to _Galactica_ _Actual."_

"Who am I speaking with?"

"Major Castleman, sir."

"What's your status, Major?"

Castleman sighed and said, "_Ascension _has sustained significant damage and our power systems are in danger of going critical, we have less then five minutes to get as many of the passengers off as possible and get them to a minimum safe distance."

"Who is in Command of that ship Major?"

"Commander Potter, he's trying to stop the overload or at least buy us enough time to get everyone off the ship."

"I'd like to speak with Commander Potter immediately," Adama said over the radio.

"I'll have you patched through sir. Lily, patch Commander Adama to Commander Potter's comlink," Castleman ordered and then went back to the important work of getting as many people off ship as possible.

Harry and Leoben ran to the bay that held the large capacitors that had been specially designed to help regulate the massive power provide by the CRPB systems for the entire ship. Harry directed Leoben to one of the junction boxes as he went to a bright control panel filled with control crystals. After switching out a few crystals and pulling out a few that had been blackened and damaged from the board he went to another set of levers on the other side of the bay and called out, "On my count. 3,2,1."

Leoben and Harry pulled all the levers on the emergency breakers trying to cut off the flow of energy to the capacitors. After checking a readout panel he cursed, "It's already destabilized. We've got less then five minutes before it blows!"

"We got to get out of here!" Leoben yelled over the sound of conduits burning and circuits shorting out.

"I got one more card to play," Harry said and started pulling levers to disconnect the conduits from the entire ship. A chime on his headset informed him of an incoming communication, "Potter."

"Commander Adama here, what's your status?"

"The primary capacitor for the power distribution system is going critical. We've got about three minutes until it blows and takes the ship with it. I'm moving to jettison the capacitors into space, that will be our best bet to save the ship."

"Understood, we are moving to pick up your passengers and assist with the evacuation."

Harry turned to Leoben and pulled a wand. He cast a flurry of protective spells over him including one to stick him to the deck and yelled out, "Grab hold of something!"

Harry pulled the hood of his cloak up and over his head trusting in the protections he had entwined in his clothing, "Here's hoping I can save my ship so you don't have to find room for five thousand people. Lily, blow it!"

All of the sudden the roof above them blow away and vanished into the vacuum. Atmosphere rushing out into space buffeted the two men as the explosive charges on the capacitors blew and rocketed them off far from the ship. A moment later the telltale glow of a containment field popped into existence moments before blast doors closed around the area. Harry checked the control panel and status readouts before having Lily confirm.

"_Galactica_, Potter here. Primary capacitor has been ejected, and is currently heading away from the ship. All craft in flight are ordered to clear the blast zone immediately and head for _Galactica."_

A countdown started being broadcast over the COMM units and communications frequencies. Harry could hear Lily's voice as she reported, "Detonation in thirty seconds."

Harry quickly spoke into his comlink, "Lily, raise shields and move us away from the explosion as fast as you can."

From outside it appeared as if a mostly transparent bubble had formed around the ship. Slowly the vessel started to move in the same direction as the escape compartments and smaller craft while at the same time the destabilized capacitor was rocketed away ad high speed. Moments later the capacitor exploded with the force of a nuclear bomb. Megatons of force and energy spread out in all directions, buffeting _Ascension_ in it's blast wave. After a moment the ship righted itself and things began to calm down finally.

Harry let out a sigh of relief as he checked the ships systems and mentally accessed Lily's reports. From what he could tell, everything was stabilizing and becoming safe again. Harry smiled and tapped his comlink, "Lily, patch me through to all ships."

"Go ahead."

"All ships, this is Potter. _Ascension_ is stabilizing. Repairs are underway and we will try to ensure the ship is safe for all evacuees to return as soon as possible. Potter out," Harry sighed and smiled. He turned to Leoben and said, "Time to tally the Butcher's Bill."

Leoben gave him a look and moved his hands in a gesture of expectation, "You think you could unstick me from the deck first?"

Harry chuckled for a moment and then looked at him with a smirk on his face, "That depends, were you going to tell me you were a Cylon before or after whomever is in charge of the fleet over there tossed down a picture of one of your brothers on a slab?"

Leoben started to get nervous, "I don't know what you mean."

Harry shook his head and looked him straight in the eye. Leoben couldn't help feeling a little uncomfortable under that stare as his glasses slipped down his nose. It was almost as if he was looking right through him.

"You know, you were also as shocked by the explosions as I was. Which means your compatriots didn't brief you on what they were planning. You had all agreed to take a wait and see approach because you couldn't understand what was happening around here. The idea of being able to spread the genocide to another world seemed pretty tempting to a few of you."

Leoben knew full well that Harry didn't approve of the Cylon extermination of Humanity. His brethren hadn't exactly left him in an enviable situation. The only good thing was that if he was killed he'd just resurrect and go from there. Harry didn't seem like the type to go for a long drawn out suffering. He'd probably be tossed out an airlock and be back with the others shortly.

"If I had wanted to toss you out the airlock, I wouldn't have bothered with the sticking charm."

"How the hell did you do that?" Leoben asked in a shocked voice.

Harry shook his head amusedly, "You've seen me link up with the ship mentally. I learned a skill known as Occlumancy when I was younger. It allows me not only to shield my mind from intrusion but to organize and better access the knowledge I have locked up in my head. It's companion skill is call Legillimancy, the ability to look into someones mind and follow the paths of emotions and thoughts to pick up information. It allows me such complete control and understanding of the status of _Ascension_ when combined with Lily. It also allows me to pick up surface thoughts from an untrained mind. You Cylons did a bang up job on creating these human forms. Even know Lily tells me she can't pick up any differences between you and a base line human being.

"However, where your minds are protected by software firewalls and defensive measures like those found in a computer they really aren't protected from me. I can tell when you lie to me, I can pick up on your surface thoughts without much issue. I usually avoid that, but the current situation has really annoyed me."

Leoben looked at him caught and then said, "So what now?"

"Now you get sealed in your quarters before someone from _Galactica_ sees you. I'll try to convince whomever is in charge of that fleet that Terran law rules here regardless of what the Colonies considers illegal," Harry said, his voice starting to show some of the exhaustion he was feeling.

Leoben looked confused for a moment, "What have we been doing so far in regards to the civlians?"

Harry sighed, "A bastardized combination of Terran and Colonial law, mostly Colonial. Obviously the whole ban on Artificial Intelligence is being ignored for the most part. Not that anyone here could really do much."

Leoben just sighed and looked at Harry, "Okay, so I'll head to my quarters?"

The grin that spread across Harry's face ensured that Leoben knew fear. Suddenly he started sinking into the deck and panicked, "I thought you weren't going to kill me!"

"I'm not, I didn't say I wasn't going to get you back," Harry said, laughing as the deck swallowed Leoben like quicksand. As soon as his head vanished, in quarters that had been assigned to him a body feel from the ceiling and landed in a comfy chair that had been there. Leoben started patting himself down for a second and then leaned back eyes closed.

"I should have known that was coming."

To be Continued...

Author's Notes: I know this took a while but it's going to be a while more for the next one probably. Main computer fried, don't have any money really to rebuild it so all my old archives are stuck on hard drives I can't access right now. Thankfully Netflix has Galactica on stream. I also have all the seasons and Razor on dvd. Never did buy The Plan though I probably should.

Now we are with the fleet, and it's just at Colonial Day, right after Zarack was announced as the Sagitarron Delegate to the Quorum of Twelve. I've been watching near the end of Season 1 and start of Season 2 to get some ideas, and things of that nature. Leoben has been revealed as a cylon, and frankly I should probably do some flashbacks to the time of Harry's Hogwart's years at some point. Things like the events of Third Year, how Harry ended up in business if not BFF's with Draco, things of that natures. I'll have to intersperse them through of course but I just don't see it yet.

If you are wondering how _Ascension_ looks then do a google search for Valdor-Class Warbird. It should bring up images of the Warbird designed for the movie _Star Trek: Nemesis_. Frankly that redesign is the ONLY thing I liked about that movie. It's not exact, as none of the Capital ships from Star Trek ever had more then shuttles, no fighter craft like a Viper of SG-1's F-302's. The docking bays on Ascension are influenced heavily by the Daedalus-class cruisers from SG1/SGA.

To yog: I don't really see Harry adapting Resurrection tech for his use. If anything I see him getting all too weirded out by it's similarity to Horcruxs, and the last time he encountered that sort of thing he destroyed it. All of Harry's life experience has lead him to be one that doesn't fear Death. Hell, that boy has seen the other side. He's not going to agree with that idea. And he knows there are worse fates then death.

Up next is a bunch of Politicing and crap that I don't really know how I'll do, but we'll see as we go.

Jmlk, the reference points thing is taken from Stargate.

Thanks to XRaider for the assistance on this chapter. We do have a debate right now as we are trying to find something to answer this. If you use a quotation marks for dialog, and then go to another paragraph with the same character speaking, you leave the previous paragraph with an open quote and then start the next paragraph with quotes.


	9. First Contact

Commander Potter of the Starship _Ascension_

Chapter 9: First Contact

A Harry Potter/Battlestar Galactica Crossover

By: C.W. Smith

Three ships took off from Ascensions starboard launch bay. Two of the landing craft with the nacelles extended and one Runner ship-to-ship shuttle. Elara had recommended the escort to _Galactica _be done using craft of harries design. While the Lander's were armed with his armament designs they weren't the kind of fighter a Viper or Raven was. However he had blown up all his Ravens and was already improving the designs before beginning construction of any new craft.

"Are my Wizengamot robes REALLY necessary?" Harry asked from the back of the Runner.

Everyone else in the Runner just chuckled at Harry's discomfort. He had told them he held a seat on the Wizengamot, although had a proxy handle the regular affairs for him. Apparently however being a member of one of the many governments on Earth meant he had to dress for the occasion. Not that he hadn't tried to make the plum colored robes more... tolerable. Instead of the full on judicial robe he was wearing a white shirt and black slacks with a hooded plum colored over robe tossed on like a long coat. The silver W on the right breast and the crest of the Houses of Potter and Black on the left.

He had absolutely refused however to wear the hat.

Harry just sighed and said, "Why the Hell did I pack this thing anyways?"

Elara smiled gently at him and said, "I believe the phrase you used was, 'Always be prepared.'"

Harry shook his head, "Still, my wardrobe wasn't exactly what I would have considered important to a standard test. Frankly it would have been much better for me to have packed the colonization packs I left back on Earth. At least then there would be something that served a purpose on board."

Chief Tellus just looked back at him, "Maybe, but we're doing okay with what's in the World Room right now. That and all the hydroponic gardens that keep going up all over the place."

Harry sighed and asked, "How are we doing on reintegrating the jettisoned evac pods?"

"We got the important stuff back where it belongs, including sickbay. Once everyone got back to where they normally are supposed to go Lily just absorbed the pods back into the deck and put them where they belong. I still don't understand how that works."

Harry just shook his head, "Basically she moves things through the superstructure using holes in space-time. A lot of our individual compartments and rooms are just artificial pocket dimensions with a connection through the hatches. The storage areas have had their internal dimensions that have been expanded significantly to fit everything in. Granted, the ship looks a lot smaller on the outside, but it does the job."

"We going to need some materials though to replace a lot of what was damaged in the attack. That primary capacitor isn't going to make itself," the chief said.

"Lets see if we can't get the waste product from the tyllium refinery. They don't really need all that rock and slag and I can break that down using an alchemic process, maybe get some of the tyllium out they couldn't."

Castleman grunted from the co-pilot's seat, "I'm more worried about what we are going to say about our Cylon on board. I understand your reasons Commander, but the rest of the fleet won't like it."

Harry just sighed, "I know, but I'm bound by a separate set of laws, laws I've already broken just by rescuing any of the people of the Colonies. There is only so far my hypocrisy will go."

"Of course you don't approve of killing unless under extreme circumstances," Elara reminded everyone.

Harry nodded, "That and with the Cylon resurrection technology it's just for all intents and purposes allowing a prisoner with possibly useful intel escape."

That information had been more then enough to still Castleman's argument towards flushing Leoben out the airlock. No one wanted to give the force hunting them any advantage. And the amount of information they already had on _Ascension_ from the other infiltrators that had been killed and resurrected was bad enough. Knowing they were still licking their wounds would have have given the Cylons enough incentive to try and take them out as is.

"It's just a shame we don't have more information on who the infiltrators are," Castleman growled.

"And nothing in my bag of tricks will help. I've run every scan and analysis I can think of on Leoben, and I've had Lily looking for anything that could differentiate him from a base-line human being. Physiologically and biologically he's completely indistinguishable from you or I. And the only thing that makes me different from the rest of you is my magical energy core. It's going to be a while before we can detect Cylon's specifically, if ever," Harry said. He had Lily running a genetic analysis and comparison of Leoben's DNA against the Colonial base genome as well as his own. That would take time however, and would not allow for a sensor sweep to pick anyone up.

"At least we can keep up with the fleet when they jump," Chief said.

The Runner was approaching _Galactica's_ port flight pod. The Lander's broke off and entered the pattern to land behind them.

"I'd prefer a flight of Raiders to this Dog and Pony show," Harry growled.

Elara set a calming hand on his shoulder, "I'm certain the others would as well. But, traditions must be observed."

Harry just nodded as he took a chance to look at the great Battlestar before him. He had to admit the ship was intimidating to him at least. He didn't know if _Ascension _could stand up to something of this power, and frankly he didn't want to find out. It had been luck and his unpredictable tactics that had saved them once, he didn't want to bet on that happening a second time.

The Runner came in and landed, time to put on a good show at least.

–

President Roslin, her aide Billy, Commander Adama, Colonel Tigh and several members of the Quorum of Twelve were all gathered in the landing bay to welcome the _Ascension_ officers. The Quorum was extremely interested when word came out that the Commander was Terran, not Colonial. That this man could be from the fabled Thirteenth Tribe had everyone wanting a piece of this event. Roslin had felt her skin crawl when Tom Zarack showed up.

Roslin and Adama stood side by side waiting for the shuttle to dock. Roslin whispered so only the Commander could hear, "We need to confirm where he is saying he's from without the rest of the fleet knowing."

"Agreed, scuttlebutt through the fleet is already getting out of control. I had Apollo and Starbuck coordinating pickup of the escape pods _Ascension_ launched before Potter stabilized his ship. Some of their reports frankly don't make a lot of sense. If I didn't know better I'd wonder what drugs they were taking," Adama said.

"Why?" Roslin asked.

–

_36 hours ago..._

The escape pods were four feet by four feet square and about 8 feet in length. Barely big enough to support two people. The pods were laid out in the hanger bay along their sides Medical personnel were waiting but there was a problem.

Capt. Lee "Apollo" Adama and Lt. Kara "Starbuck" Thrace were going over the pods, trying to figure out how to open them.

"This doesn't make any sense," Kara ground out as she stood with the help of her cane.

"No seams, no controls, not even a hint of where the hatch is," Lee said as he ran his hand along one of the pods.

"What good is an escape pod if you can't escape from it?" Kara said as she limped over.

Suddenly all the pods in the bay tipped over and ended up standing straight up on the square edge. Apollo and Starbuck both jumped backwards as the Marines targeted the strange pods with their rifles. Carefully Apollo walked around and looked at the pod. He was just making it back around the strange pillar of metal when suddenly a seam appeared splitting down the middle of the side facing him. Apollo jumped as it opened like an elevator and a line of twenty people started to walk out. Each pod held upwards of twenty to thirty people.

Starbuck met Apollo's eyes and saw they were just as shocked and amazed as she was. Once the last person came out of the pod they slowly made their way to what could only be thought of as the hatch and looked in. Instead of what they thought should be maybe a harness to hold a person securely, was a room that frankly looked like it belonged on some home back in the Colonies. The two Viper pilots looked at each other, and without a word went and walked around the pod, confirming that it was what they thought on the outside.

Apollo looked up and yelled out, "Chief! Come over here for a second. Could you measure this?"

Chief Galen Tyrol walked up and had Callie hold one side of a tape measure. Apollo and Starbuck did what they could to keep them from looking inside the pod while they measured it. Once that was done and they gave them the measurements, Apollo and Starbuck looked it over, turned to each other, nodded and Kara said, "Chief, take a look inside there."

Tyrol looked at the two pilots confused for a moment and went and looked inside. Callie was startled when she heard the Chief scream out, "WHAT THE FRAK?"

–

"Should I have you checked out?" Roslin asked.

Adama chuckled, "I read that report, took Tigh down with me and looked inside. We had every one we could spare walk through and they all reported the same thing. That's not the strangest of it. We put four viper pilots in there blindfolded and told them to report any strange change in orientation and had a team outside to move one of those pods around. We even tipped it over on it's side, and completely inverted it. The pilots didn't feel any movement. When we told them to remove the blindfolds while the pods were inverted they walked around. Gravity was still holding them to the floor. It's strange to watch a person walk on the ceiling."

Roslin had a look of disbelief on her face, "So his escape pods are bigger on the inside then they are on the outside?"

"According to the people we pulled out of those pods those were actually crew quarters prior to being ejected from _Ascension_. A larger compartment was found that was a fully functioning sickbay. Of course none of us can really make heads or tails of how any of it works. The medical personnel in the compartment frankly don't understand how it works, just that it does work," Adama said.

The President shook her head at the apparent level of technology being demonstrated here. She waited as the shuttle hatch started to open and a ramp lowered. Two marines took up a guard position at the base of the ramp, and were followed by a small group of people. The first man wore a strange colored hooded robe over a simple wardrobe of black slacks and a white business shirt. The hood was down, showing a young man with raven black hair that seemed to have never seen a hair brush and eyes a shade of emerald green she'd never seen in any person before behind simple glasses.

He was joined by a an older man with graying hair in Colonial military uniform on his right side. Behind them was a young woman dressed in priestess robes, a man that looked around the same age as Doctor Cottle, and a man dressed like one of _Galactica's_ enlisted crew who looked like he had been retired before the Fall. The small group approached the President and Adama, the man in the strange cloak that seemed to be the color of a plum approached them.

The younger man stopped and President Roslin spoke, "On behalf of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol, I welcome you. I am Laura Roslin, President of the Twelve Colonies. This is William Adama, Commander of the Battlestar _Galactica."_

The young man smiled and in perfect Colonial Standard said, "I am Harry Potter, Lord and head of the Ancient and Noble House of Potter, Lord Stewart of the Ancient and Noble House of Black, Commander of the Terran Starship Ascension, and member of the Wizengamot of the United Kingdom of Great Britain. And allow me to say, what an honor it is to be the first of my people to meet you and yours."

Harry turned and said, "Allow me to introduce Major Jack Castleman, acting Ascension XO and commander of the Colonial Military personnel on board. Elara Amezad, Priestess and civilian representative. And Chief Walter Tellus, Chief Engineer. I should point out that aside from myself right now my entire crew is made up of Colonial survivors."

Adama was curious and asked, "What happened to your original crew?"

Harry smirked, and in a self-deprecating tone said, "I'm it, _Ascension_ is a prototype and I was on a test run of the Jump drive to the fourth planet of our star system. I haven't quiet pinned down what went wrong just yet, but with the help of Chief Tellus and a few others we have the drive working as it should be."

Adama could tell from years of experience that the other man wasn't being entirely truthful at the moment. He couldn't help but wonder what it was he was hiding about his FTL problems, but for now he would let it slide and remember it for later. He waved towards the Quorum and as introductions were made he thought on what he knew so far. Just from the escape pods they had picked up it seemed strange that the entire ship was a prototype platform.

Roslin moved off to introduce Potter to the delegates as his command staff kept close by. Elara was right at his right shoulder while Castleman stayed on the left. Once all the introductions were completed Harry turned to the President and said, "Madam President, I think for now that there a few issues that need to be discussed between you and I. Frankly Commander Adama as the highest ranked military officer here probably should be involved as well. Major Castleman is probably more capable of coordinating our CAP flights with _Galactica's_ XO then I am. I brought Elara to check in on our civilians and begin to make arrangements to have them transferred back to _Ascension_. Chief Tellus can start getting a list of parts you may need for your craft as well as schematics so we can start getting you some replacements."

Adama asked, "Are you sure you have parts to spare?"

Harry turned to the older man and smiled saying, "We should be able to generate whatever is needed. Frankly the only thing I need to do this is whatever waste mater you have available like slag from refinement or other processes that leave behind considerable waste product. All that matter as is does no one any good. I'm able to actually put it to good use. Don't ask for food from that process though, I still haven't been able to get that part functional if it ever will be."

Roslin raised an eyebrow as they walked through the corridors of _Galactica_. This was a frighteningly advanced level of technology to rearrange matter into anything that is needed. But it seemed to have limitations in that it could create food. So how did they take care of that need? Did they have to carry supplies like Colonial Fleet did? Could they only recreate needed parts but nothing else?

Roslin and Adama showed Potter into the Commander's quarters and offered him a seat. Once all three were settled down and Adama offered something for everyone to drink. They sat there for a moment before Adama asked, "So you aren't from the Colonies?"

Harry shook his head, "No, I'm from a star system in the Orion arm of the galaxy about twenty-six thousand light-years from Galactic Center and fourteen light-years above the Galactic Plane. I was testing my ships FTL drive when something went wrong and I came out of the jump over Caprica. I'll tell you, I hadn't been planning a weapons test so soon."

"You dropped right into the Cylon attack?" Adama asked.

Harry nodded, "It was only through luck I was able to disable their capital ship and make planet fall. Took maybe a week or so to get the ship space worthy, along with about two extra days for the refit and reconfiguration to be able to carry, launch, and maintain the Vipers and Raptors we picked up. I know, it sounds strange, but then again everything in the last couple of months has been strange."

Roslin nodded, "We've all had to adjust to circumstances. You said you were a Terran?"

Harry smiled and nodded, "I had to start calling myself that after the second transport we picked up went nuts from hearing it was an Earth ship. Thought we were a space faring version of the _Flying Dutchman._"

"_Flying Dutchman_?" Adama asked.

"A supposed ghost ship from my Homeworld. It is said that the ship would ride the seas, doomed to sail for all time and unable to ever make port. Seeing the Dutchman is usually considered a portent of doom," Harry explained, then took a sip from his drink.

Adama nodded and leaned back in the chair behind his desk. President Roslin then asked, "So you are from Earth then?"

Harry chuckled and shook his head, "That is a point of heated debate back on _Ascension_. I'm the first human being from our world to even attempt a trip to any other planet beyond our moon, to say nothing for going outside the Solar System. Frankly, I was shocked to find the first extra-solar civilization I encountered was made up of Humans. Finding out that a world with the same name as mine is mentioned in another peoples holy scripture was a bit unnerving as well you understand."

Roslin smiled a bit, "I think I can understand that."

"To us, Earth is little more then a myth. Something to live for but little more then that," Adama said.

Harry nodded, "I've been going back and forth with Elara a few other scholars we picked up. While I accept the possibility your Thirteenth Tribe made it to my homeworld, the timelines just discount the possibility of them being the only source of humanity on Earth."

Roslin's scholarly background gave way, even as Adama paid a bit more attention, "How so?" the aged Commander asked.

Harry sighed, "There is archeological and anthropological evidence to conclude humans evolved on Earth back approximately one hundred and fifty thousand years ago. We have evidence of primitive civilizations going back no less then ten thousand years. While I don't discount the possibility of an extraterrestrial landing around three thousand years ago, I do disagree with the idea that all Humanity on Earth is descended from them."

"So you don't believe that Humanity started on Kobol and then migrated to another world," The President asked.

Harry nodded, "I frankly have two theories with what we know. One, they never made it to my world and the Earth in your scripture is a different planet. Two, they did make it but encountered an already established branch of Humanity. Primitive yet kindred. Considering there are recordings of flying chariots and the like in ancient text it's plausible. I think they would have landed and integrated themselves into the indiginous culture."

"Why is that?" Adama asked.

Harry sighed and looked at the both of them wearily, "The same reason I sort of prefer theory number one over the idea that your Thirteenth Tribe arrived on my world. About three thousand years ago, an ancient civilization sprouted up on Earth in the area now known as Greece. They were some of the most socially, technologically, and philosophically advanced people of the age. The important thing however is that they worshiped a pantheon of many gods. This pantheon, the Gods of Olympus, matches exactly with the Lords of Kobol."

Roslin was a little confused and asked, "Why would that make you want to believe the Thirteenth Tribe didn't reach your world?"

Harry smiled, "Because it begs the question of how we developed not just the same pantheon of gods, but even the same words and names for them. I find that the more compelling and interesting question."

Roslin smiled at that, "You don't seem to be having issues with the language barrier."

Harry smiled and pulled his holly and phoenix feature wand and tapped his head with the tip, "I've been using a translation matrix in order to understand. It's been helping me actually learn the language so I don't have to depend on it."

"That seems rather advanced technology since I can't see any device except for that ear piece you're wearing," Adama responded.

Harry smiled, "That's something that frankly is going to bother some people I bet. The translation matrix and my means of matter replication rely on certain things that frankly my people have been capable of for millennium."

Harry closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose for a moment, "What I'm about to tell you isn't much of a secret back on _Ascension_. With all the people here as well as the civilians from my ship I wouldn't be surprised if your entire fleet knows."

Harry set his glass on the Commander's desk and swished his wand at it, casting a simple levitation charm on it. Both Roslin and Adama were shocked with the cup lifted into the air without any assistence. Harry returned it to the desk then transfigured it into a replica of a MkVII Viper, then a Raptor, then a Raider, and then a red rose. Harry offered the rose to President Roslin for her inspection.

The look of shock on the Presidents face as she discovered that it looked, felt, and smelt like a flower was clear. She handed it to Commander Adama for his inspection, and once he was done Harry took the flower and turned it back into the same glass he had been drinking from. He looked at the pair and said, "On my world there are two seperate civilizations. One of them is really no different from your own. We don't have as advanced space travel as you do but for the most part it's pretty much the same. Then there is my world. We call ourselves by various names, but most people from Europe and Britain call ourselves Witches and Wizards. We are magic users, and aside from humans there are many other sentient races among us. Most of our banking is handled by the Goblin Nation. The lake at the school I went to as a child is inhabited by merfolk, the forest by centaurs. We have little four foot tall elves who help us with our everyday lives. We are for the most part completely seperate from the rest of the world.

"Our world is not unified on either side of the line. The only thing that makes us Magicals more united is our upholding of our Prime Directive, the International Statute of Secrecy. We do not allow anyone who isn't a magic-user or immediately related to a magic user to know of us. The fear of being hunted down by the rest of the world even now so long after the last witch hunts frightens us. Much like yourselves and the Cylons."

Harry looked directly at the two and continued, "I sit on the British Wizengamot, and frankly the only thing that's going to save me from prosecution is the fact that our Secrecy Laws do not take contact with anyone beyond Earth's atmosphere into account. My people are very strict on the wording of the law, if not always it's spirit."

"Why is that?" Roslin asked.

"Because words have power. If I were to swear an oath to you right now on my life, and then break that oath, I would immediately fall on the deck dead. For us the law isn't open to interpretation."

Harry smirked, "If it weren't for magic I wouldn't have been able to create _Ascension_. I designed her, tested her, I spent pretty much my whole life working on her when I wasn't in class or dealing with something else."

Adama tried to keep his voice steady, "So the escape pods we pulled in?"

Harry nodded, knowing that would have gotten their attention, "Expansion charms, I based it on a common charms used for many things, even tents. I think I have a few tents like that, but I am not sure if I packed them on board. Making things bigger on the inside then they are on the outside is something we've been able to do for centuries. I've got ten square kilometers of farmland and forest on that ship, and it was much smaller then it is now when I first jumped from Earth."

"That is simply amazing," Roslin said, still stunned from the revelations. Adama was much better about it at the time due to his experience.

"I suppose that we will need to discuss the disposition of the Colonial citizens on your ship then, as well as the military personnel."

Harry shook his head, "I'm as lost in the wilderness as you are Commander. As far as I'm concerned they can stay on board until we reach wherever you call your new home. If that happens to be my home world then I can use some of my non-magical contacts to smooth things out. But, I want to try to avoid bringing a war we'd be unable to fight to our front door. All I ask is that _Ascension_ be considered Terran soil and governed by Terran Law. There are frankly some parts of _Ascension_ that I'm certain violates Colonial law but isn't illegal back home."

"I'm certain we can come to an agreement on those particular issues. We do need to discuss the possibility that you might have a Cylon spy on board," President Roslin pointed out.

Harry sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose again, "I have one Cylon in custody, at least three others blew themselves up and got two more trying to take us out just before we jumped here. I was able to hack the Cylon data network during the attack, didn't get much but what I did get tells me that he's better off staying where he is."

Adama perked up at that and seemed to become much more intense even though he didn't really move much. It frankly intimidated Harry, "What intel is this?"

"The Cylons have a way to download and save the consciousness and memories or any Cylon that is terminated. Executing any Cylon is little more then sending them back with potentially vital information. I have to insist that for security reasons if nothing else that the execution option is tossed out," Harry replied, trying to get the seriousness of what he told them out.

"We've heard that before from other Cylon's," Adama pointed out.

"Well I'm confirming it, the Basestar I hacked had an entire facility on board for it. They may also have a larger platform in order to do the same for all their personnel, including Raiders. Since Leoben probably knows more about my ship then the others barring one that was posing as a Colonial Viper Pilot I really don't want to do it."

"That answers the question of which one you have. We've encountered two previous versions of him before," Adama said.

Harry smirked, "He give you the swimming in the stream, standing on the shore argument?"

Adama chuckled, "He used that on one of my pilots. The one I dealt with went on about God, singular, giving the Cylon's souls."

Harry couldn't help but laugh, "He said the same thing to me. Doesn't help that I know of artifacts that were created a while back either intentionally or not that have a life all their own. Hell, I did the same on my ship, that's one of those things that I know are illegal in the Colonies but aren't on Earth due to pretty much our lack of anything resembling a Cylon."

"You created an Artificial Intelligence?" Roslin asked.

Harry sort of hemmed and hawed for a moment before answering, "In a sense. Think of it this way, we human beings leave a part of ourselves behind on everything that really matters to us. Take _Galactica_ for instance. She's over fifty years old. Thousands of people have walked this ship, served aboard in one form or another. People work here, call it their home, love each other in her bunks, fight for what they believe in, all of that. You take all that, and you keep it up over time it's going to leave it's mark. Blood has run across her deck plates and over time all of that builds up, comes together and creates a spirit all it's own born from everyone who has ever set foot on this ship. Lily, the Artificial Intelligence if you will, acts like you would expect an AI in regards to ship operations. But she's more then that. She's the culmination of all the blood, sweat, tears, and hopes I put into creating _Ascension_. In a very real sense she is the soul of my ship, born from everything I put into creating it and I don't just mean the physical. In a very real sense she is still a child. She knows but doesn't understand, has intellect but no wisdom."

Adama folded his hands on his desk, "That is very difficult to accept."

Harry just shrugged, "When Magic is added into any equation you have to through out what you know should happen and understand that you can't always predict what will happen. I once saw an enchanted car take on a life of it's own. No where near as intelligent as a Cylon, more like a very big, loyal, blue metal dog."

With that they turned the talk to more mundane and boring topics.

–

Back in some other part of the Galactica, Col. Tigh and Major Castleman were going over assignments and manifests when Tigh asked, "So, what can you tell me about Commander Potter, or whatever the frak title he goes by?"

Castleman was going over a list of needed parts of Viper repair when he said, "Officer's Discretion?"

"Of course."

"Frankly Colonel, there are times he scares the frak out of me. He's got a Gods damned AI in control of major functions on that ship. If it weren't for some of the things he can do I know the Cylon's can't I'd swear he was a Cylon at times."

Tigh raised an eyebrow at that, "What do you mean?"

Castleman shook his head, "During the attack, he actually took full control of that ship. I don't mean pushing someone from their console and doing the job. I mean he leaned back and it was almost like he was a part of the ship. His brain, whatever, was in full control of all system for a period of time. I didn't do anything then because of our situation. But... I don't know. It's like he knows what is working and what isn't like it was his own body at times. He tried to explain it but I honestly don't understand a single bit of his so called magic."

Tigh poured a couple of fingers of ambrosia and offered Castleman one. The Major thanked him and sipped the liquor before saying, "He's inexperienced when it comes to commanding a ship, he'll admit to that himself. He relies on instinct more then anything. I won't say he thinks he knows everything like some young officers just out of the academy, but he's about at their level of experience. Which means he heavily leans on our ad-hoc command staff. If he were one of my lieutenants though I'd say he had the makings of a fine officer once he got more time in."

"Green?"

Castleman actually let out a small laugh, "Very. He's much more capable in hand-to-hand combat and uses that magic of his. I watched him go through a training session once against what he called training dummies. It's not like a gunfight. Wand combat, at least the way he does it seems to be more a martial art then a gun fight. He's also one of the craziest damn pilots I've ever seen. Hell if I know how he pulls off some of those maneuvers of his. He actually flies CAP every now and then."

Tigh shook his head, "Sounds like another Lt. Thrace."

"She would have a run for her money against Potter if it was just about flight. Trust me," Castleman said as he finished his drink.

–

Chief Tellus was going over parts requasitions for the _Galactica _hanger bay. He sighed as he looked through all the needed equipment. As he flipped a page he turned to the younger Chief Tyrol and said, "I think we can get you what you need, we're just going to need one of each to get started. All we have are parts of the MkVII's."

"What good would a part do you if you don't have any in stock?"

"Commander Potter has a device on board that makes things from practically thin air. We'd need them to scan them in and get it loaded into the _Ascension_ computer so we could generate what you need. I don't get how it does what it does, something about recombining matter or some other crap. I just know it works," Tellus said.

"How'd you end up over there?"

Tellus sighed and said, "I retired years ago. During the attack my son and his wife were in Caprica City while I babysat my grandchildren. Harry picked us up and got us out of there without any questions. All he asked was if anyone could help him with his FTL problems. I can see why he'd want someone to ask. It's not exactly a good thing if your FTL misses it's target by several thousand light-years."

Tyrol's eyes widened at that, "How bad off was his FTL drive?"

Tellus chuckled, "That's the thing, it wasn't. It's not built like any jump drive I've ever seen, but the basic principles are the same. Everything I know says it should have got him where he was going. As much as I know he wants to get home, I thank the Gods they brought him to us."

"I bet," Tyrol said. He was silent for a moment before he asked, "You have any idea how he made something the size of a phone booth fit thirty people?"

Tellus chuckled, "Magic."

–

Gaius Baltar sat in a conference room with the other Quorum delegates and thought about what he had heard. For a moment he could have sworn Potter had looked at him with a bit more curiosity then he had the other delegates. Baltar couldn't help the slight feeling of unease when he looked into the other man's eyes, or the tingling of fear as he had shaken his hand.

"Be careful with this one Gaius. He can look into your very soul and see things no one else can," she said.

"You mean he can read my mind?" Baltar asked, a bit scared by what might be revealed about him.

"Nothing so cliché. The mind is not a book to be opened and flipped to a certain page. But he can pick up on what you are thinking right now. I wouldn't worry though. He has to look you right in the eye for that," she said as her arms wrapped around him.

"Why didn't you tell me this before? It's going to be rather strange if I look anywhere but his eyes," Gaius pointed out softly.

"Even if you do, don't worry. He won't find anything there."

"Why pray tell does he need eye contact for that sort of thing? It seems as if it would be... limited in it's usefulness."

Six smiled in that strangely amused way of hers as she slide her hands over his shoulders, "The eyes are the windows to the soul. How else would you peer in and see what is inside?"

"Of course, because some stranger from a mythical world has such powers only described in fables and scripture," Baltar retorted with his usual air of logical disdain.

"He's not too different from you Gaius. Like you he also acts as one of God's instruments. But where you are guided and lead, Potter acts as the sword and shield. He is a protector, a savior. Unlike you though, he accepts that as part of his purpose," Six told the scientist. Baltar could feel her wrap her arms around his shoulders and her breath along the back of his neck. It excited him when she did that.

"He actually believes in your One, True God?" Baltar asked, a bit skeptical.

"Potter has died and seen the other side, his life has been dominated by prophecy and he knows that there is a higher power then himself. He believes, maybe not in the same way I do, but he believes," Six said just before she kissed the back of Baltar's neck.

A moment later President Roslin, Commander Adama, and Commander Potter walked into the conference room. The delegates took their seats as Roslin addressed them from the podium, "This meeting is outside the planned discussion for the meeting on _Cloud-9. _No motions will be accepted or discussed until then.

"Commander Potter is acting as a representative of Terra. It has been agreed that his ship will be considered Terran soil and governed by their laws. We've reached an agreement concerning our civilians and military on board as well as coordinating our mutual defense, though nominally _Ascension_ will be considered outside Colonial Jurisdiction."

Tom Zarack raised a hand and asked, "Will Terra be granted a seat on the Quorum?"

Potter stepped forward and answered, "No. I am the soul citizen of Terra in this fleet at this time. As Terra is not a signatory to the Articles of Colonization, nor frankly even aware of our existence I can not and will not act in anyway to speak for our whole planet. I can not and will not agree to anything that frankly should be decided by more then one Wizengamot member."

Baltar raised his hand, "When can we expect assistence from Terra?"

Harry sighed and said, "We can't. Understand that we do not have FTL capability back home. Ascension is the first of her kind and I was on a test run of her Jump Drive when I ended up off course and right in the middle of the Cylon attack. Even if I could get a signal there, Terra just doesn't have the capability of assisting in any way, shape, or form. That is not to say that _Ascension_ will not provide aide and support. We'll do what we can to help get us all to safety. I will act as more an Ambassador to the Colonies of Kobol unless or until we reach my home star system."

Roslin took the podium again and said, "Further arrangements and details will be available prior to the meeting on _Cloud-9_. Any requests for supplies or assistance for now will go through the normal channels. This meeting is now adjourned, I look forward to seeing you all at the official meeting."

The delegates started yelling out questions and demands as the trio left the room. Zarack could be seen with a thoughtful look on his face, as if he was taking this in and adding it to his plans. Baltar however thought for a moment as Six rubbed his shoulders, "Remember Gaius, he's a protector of the people. He'll strike at anything he thinks is a threat to those under his protection. Even if they aren't Cylons."

That didn't offer much comfort to him.

To Be Continued...

Author's Notes: Okay, got this one out faster then the last chapter. Now I know this was dialog heavy, but it was dealing with politics and the like. Frankly I hate that shit, but it needed to be done. Also I wanted to make sure Harry couldn't just solve all their problems and reveal all the secrets everyone is keeping. Legillimancy is not like Professor Xavier grade Telepathy. It has serious limitations, and can only pick up on surface thoughts unless it's a full on attack. He's not going to be able to pick up Boomer as a Cylon unless she's thinking Cylon thoughts and he's looking her right in the eyes. Hell, I doubt Veratiserum could get her to admit she's a Cylon. And if there is something in Baltar's head, it's going to have it's own defenses.

I will be honest, this is probably the most boring chapter so far. What do you expect from discussions and political crap. I just hope that the bit with the escape pods lightened the load. I was sort of envisioning the TARDIS when I thought them up.


End file.
